Arno Karlen

A Social History of Man and Disease

Plague's Progress

A noted medical historian places recent outbreaks of deadly diseases in historical perspective, with accounts of other alarming and recurring diseases throughout history and of the ways in which humans have adapted. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.

Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times

Man and Microbes

Employing a new method of examining our past which integrates medical, behavioral, and environmental sciences, the author journeys through biohistory to question the physical forces influencing celebrated people and phenomena of history

And Other Ventures in Biohistory

Napoleon's Glands

Milton Diamond

Sexual Decisions

The Black Death, the Great Plague, leprosy, smallpox: the very names now have a historical - almost a mythological - ring. With our space-age hospitals and wonder drugs, surely we've consigned pestilence to the past? Even AIDS hasn't succeeded in persuading us otherwise . . .In this shocking, scintillating book, biohistorian Arno Karlen questions this complacent conspiracy, tracing the continuities of contagion from ancient times to the present day. An epic of epidemic, the story is, he says, anything but over: indeed we may well be standing on the brink of disaster.

Arno Karlen, author of Man and Microbes, focuses on a single bacterium in Biography of a Germ, giving us an intimate view of a life that has been shaped by and is in turn transforming our own. Borrelia burgdorferi is the germ that causes Lyme disease. In existence for some hundred million years, it was discovered only recently. Exploring its evolution, its daily existence, and its journey from ticks to mice to deer to humans, Karlen lucidly examines the life and world of this recently prominent germ. He also describes how it attacks the human body, and how by changing the environment, people are now much more likely to come into contact with it. Charming and thorough and smart, this book is a wonderfully written biography of your not so typical biographical subject.

Biography of a Germ

Color images captured on film from the perspective of a photographer's New York apartment window show the city, its people, and Central Park in every season and are complemented by selections from great writers' works

A World Through My Window

"White Apples," the novella from which this book takes its title, is a touching and extremely powerful story of a doomed love affair. Annushka, its heroine, is one of the notable creations in contemporary fiction; few readers will finish her story without a strong emotional response. Among the six short stories included are two of particular brilliance: "The Clown," which comes close to being aminor classic, and the haunting "The Night Season." The collection also contains a dozen trenchant and fiverting "fables."

Arno Karlen

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