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The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread--And Why They Stop
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About This Book
One of the Best Books of 2020 — Financial Times One of the "Most 2020 Books of 2020" — Washington Post One of the Best Science Books of 2020 — The Times of London One of the Best Science Books of 2020 — The Guardian From ideas and infections to financial crises and "fake news," why the science of outbreaks is the science of modern life. These days, whenever anything spreads, whether it's a YouTube fad or a political rumor, we say it went viral. But how does virality actually work? In The Rules of Contagion, epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explores topics including gun violence, online manipulation, and, of course, outbreaks of disease to show how much we get wrong about contagion, and how astonishing the real science is. Why did the president retweet a Mussolini quote as his own? Why do financial bubbles take off so quickly? And why are disinformation campaigns so effective? By uncovering the crucial factors driving outbreaks, we can see how things really spread — and what we can do about it. Whether you are an author seeking an audience, a defender of truth, or simply someone interested in human social behavior, The Rules of Contagion is an essential guide to modern life.
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Reviews
"it is hard to imagine a more timely publication."
"Epidemic is a Greek word meaning 'on the people', and until Hippocrates requisitioned it to refer exclusively to the spread of a disease, the Greeks applied it to anything that percolated through a population – from fog to rumour to civil war."
"Kucharski's maths is illuminating ..."
"[Kucharski's] book prepares the ground comprehensively for readers to make sense of what is happening today, by distilling the wisdom gathered by studying previous epidemics over more than a century."
"In this smart and engaging tour of epidemiology, written before the pandemic, Kucharski makes a convincing case that just as the arc of an epidemic depends on the transmissibility of a virus and a population's susceptibility to infection, so online contagions obey similar rules."
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