Andrew
Spielman and Michael D’Antonio
“No
animal on earth has touched so directly and profoundly the lives of so many
human beings. For all of history, and all over the globe, she has been a
nuisance, a pain, and an angel of death. The mosquito has killed great leaders,
decimated armies, and decided the fates of nations. All this, and she is
roughly the size and weight of a grape seed.” –from the Preface to Mosquito
From
its irritating whine to the itch of its bite, the mosquito is one of our least
favorite creatures. Not merely a seasonal annoyance, this tiny insect delivers
more illness to humanity than any other single living agent. Worldwide,
mosquitoes transmit the agents of dozens of devastating diseases, including
dengue, elephantiasis, and malaria, which affects ten percent of the world’s
population.
Now,
from a world-renowned expert on mosquitoes and a prize-winning reporter comes a
lively and comprehensive portrait of the insect itself, its role in history,
and its threat to mankind. Spielman and D’Antonio take a mosquito’s-eye view of
nature and man. They show us how mosquitoes breed, live, mate, and die, and
introduce us to their enemies, both natural and man-made. The authors present
tragic and often grotesque examples of how the mosquito has insinuated itself
into human history, from the malaria that devastated invaders of ancient Rome,
to the yellow fever epidemics that plagued the Civil War-era population of New
Orleans, to the current widespread West Nile fever panic. They portray the
eccentric pioneers and heroic scientists who, in the late nineteenth century,
first made the connection between mosquitoes and disease. They chronicle the
attempts in the twentieth century to wipe mosquito-borne disease off the face
of the earth, and how these efforts have backfired thanks to a combination of
hubris, miscalculation, and misinformation; they highlight, in particular, the
debacle surrounding the use and banning of DDT. And they explain what we can do
as individuals and as a society to protect ourselves and our species.
Filled
with little-known facts and remarkable anecdotes that bring this tiny being
into larger focus, Mosquito offers fascinating, alarming, and convincing
evidence that the sooner we get to know this little creature, the better off
we’ll be.
Available
at Timbooktoo, tel 4494345.
