Deadly Intimacies - How Germs Shape Our History

Deadly Intimacies - How Germs Shape Our History Book Description In the world we live in, there is a group of living things other than plants and animals that, although they are too small to be seen with the naked eye, they can be said to be the real owners of the earth: They existed before all other living things, and they will probably be the last to disappear. We need the "friends" of these creatures that inhabit not only our environment but also our bodies: They are as necessary as air and water for a healthy life. The struggle between us and the "enemies" has been going on since time immemorial. In this book, microbiologist Dorothy Crawford discusses the history of the relationship between humans and these ubiquitous tiny creatures, which we will briefly call "microbes." How did microbes evolve to easily infect and spread to humans? Why did the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies benefit microbes? What conditions allowed microbes to flourish when the first cities were founded? How have severe epidemics and plagues throughout history affected human societies and cultures? What were the inventions and discoveries that allowed us to start combating microbes effectively? Which microbes have we defeated, and which ones continue to defeat us? What dangers await us in an increasingly crowded world? “This is a thousands-year-old story in which humans and microbes have evolved together, and the history of what happened is written in our genes. We are the children of ancestors who survived infectious diseases and gave birth to disease-resistant children; We owe it to them that we can be here and tell this story.” (From the Promotional Bulletin)