Reference no: EM131036322

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You are required to write a 900 word, double-spaced, in which you address one of the following questions.  Please chose to answer one of the following questions:

1.  In The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson argues that the cholera outbreak that swept through the Broad Street region of Soho in September of 1854 was "one of the defining moments in the invention of modern life."  What did he mean by this?   Using specific examples from the book and from the primary documents available on the Website: Cartographies of Life and Death, analyze this statement.

2.  In popular memory, Dr. John Snow has been credited for producing a map that convinced public authorities and other scientists that cholera was a water-borne illness.  But that is not what happened.  What were the key elements that enabled Snow to develop a new understanding of cholera?  How did his theory differ from other theories?  How did he represent his theory on his famous map? (see page 189 and reproduced on the Website: Cartographies of Life and Death)

3. In the epilogue of The Ghost Map Stephen Johnson quoted from American urban theorist Jane Jacobs who wrote, "Cities were once the most helpless and devastated victims of disease, but they became great disease conquerors."[i] Johnson made the same argument.

What role did London play in the cholera outbreak in September 1854 and in Snow's discovery of its source?

[i] Jane Jacobs as cited in Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic and how it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006), 235.