So Very Small

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents So Very Small by Thomas Levenson, read by Mike Cooper.

In 1665, an infectious disease swept through the British capital and claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. It would take another two hundred years for the cause of the Great Plague of London to be confirmed: a powerful bacterium called Yersinia pestis. In those centuries, our understanding of diseases was transformed.

In So Very Small, Thomas Levenson reveals how human hubris led us to overestimate our own ability and underestimate the threat that microorganisms truly pose. He journeys through some of the most significant epidemics and pandemics in history, including the recurrent outbreaks of cholera in Europe and Asia, and the
1721 Boston smallpox epidemic.

The turning point came in the nineteenth century with the development of germ theory: the concept that microbes can cause disease. Levenson shows how, in the years that followed, scientists made major breakthroughs in our ongoing struggle against infectious disease. Perhaps the greatest of these achievements is the discovery of antibiotic treatment, which has been the salvation of much of humanity in recent centuries.

In a story that spans centuries and continents, So Very Small explores the scientific quest to understand how tiny organisms have impacted the wider world – and looks ahead to the battle to fight their rapid evolution.

Critics Review

Every page is fascinating, every detail on this amazing journey through history affects our daily lives: the story of how humans discovered microbes and germs and created the world we know today. Never has science been so compelling, exciting and accessible as it is in the hands of Thomas Levenson. Brilliant!
Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
A thought-provoking, engrossing account of one of the most momentous transformations in our understanding of the world and our place in it. So Very Small brings the history of science to life with vivid details and captivating anecdotes.
Dr Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis
So Very Small is the wonderfully intimate and intertwined story of how humans discovered microbes and learned to tame them. Levenson is a master storyteller, and his latest book reads like an epic novel, spanning centuries, continents and microbial calamities. It offers a compelling story of how microbes have influenced society, seamlessly intertwined with fascinating historical events, while vividly bringing the characters and scientific discoveries to life.
Alanna Collen, author of 10% Human
Fascinating... Thomas Levenson expertly combines storytelling and big questions, most notably: Why not? Why wasn’t the germ theory of disease formulated 200 years earlier? Why, in general, are huge scientific discoveries delayed until they happen?
David Quammen, author of Spillover
In So Very Small, author Tom Levenson brings to brilliant life the social history of medical detective work, notably the long quest to understand and to combat infectious disease. In doing so he illuminates the fascinating world of pathogenic microbes, the often unexpected ways we've achieved protection, and the often self-destructive ways we've undermined – and continue to undermine – our own public health successes. In a world where the next pandemic waits ahead, this is essential reading.
Deborah Blum, author of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Quest for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
In So Very Small, Levenson transports us to the eighteenth century to begin the long and winding journey to the discovery and prevention of infectious disease, interweaving history, science and philosophy. Join him to learn about the greatest of human endeavours.
Professor John S. Tregoning, author of Infectious
By peering through the lens of the modern germ theory, and our protracted battle with disease, Levenson has crafted a vivid, engaging and timely reminder that we are not as omnipotent nor as clever as we often believe ourselves to be. So Very Small is a deeply researched and thoughtfully compelling exploration of our successes, failures and precarious future with deadly pathogens.
Dr Timothy C. Winegard, author of The Mosquito and The Horse
How can a book about small things be so enormously entertaining? Levenson’s command of narrative and eminently readable style zooms us effortlessly between two realms to tell the story of humanity’s relationship with the microcosmos – a drama tracing back to long before we knew the microcosmos existed. Both an opus and a page-turner, So Very Small is a work of grand-scale ambition, elegantly achieved.
Jason Roberts, author of Every Living Thing
A penetrating chronicle of humanity’s fight against microorganisms... The account concludes with a troubling study of how vaccine misinformation and an overreliance on antibiotics has produced drug-resistant superbugs and led to the re-emergence of measles, imperilling hard-won advances in public health... Buoyed by the author’s lucid prose, this is a first-rate work of popular science.
Publisher's Weekly
Levenson provides not only the backstory to resistance to variolation but an elegant, wide-ranging history of the discovery of microorganisms and their relation to disease.
New York Review of Books
Mr Levenson takes the reader on a remarkable journey through history … With extraordinary detail and authoritative prose (and not a few very graphic descriptions), the author describes the suffering brought about by ignorance and prejudice. . . . What Mr. Levenson’s book makes clear is that the battle against germs never ends. . . . If we want to preserve the victories accumulated over two centuries against the worst killers of the microbe world, we must rebuild public-health systems, monitor disease, protect and fund science, and recognize that we are not the only ‘actors.
Wall Street Journal
Thought-provoking … Levenson does an artful job of weaving the little-known historical facts into a suspenseful narrative with unexpected twists and turns … So Very Small is one of those books that stick with you long after you read it – it makes you realize that our victory in the bacterial war is far from guaranteed.
Undark

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