The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator

An excellent book detailing the history of the mosquito form the age of the dinosaur to the present day. The author takes you on a historical journey and you learn that the dinosaurs may have been weakened to the point of near extinction by the mosquito, and the asteroid impact may have been the coup de grace that sealed their fate. You will discover that the mosquito was essentially engaged in every major combat on the planet, from the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia to the 300 Spartans, the Indian Wars, the revolutionary war, the Civil War, the first world war and the second world war, the building of the Panama Canal. Youll read about the Malarial parasite and how deadly it is and how it transforms itself to survive. How mosquitoes spread viruses around the world. This is truly a fascinating book. I do believe that it is time to eradicate the mosquito species involved in the transmission of Malaria and other dangerous viruses. This has already been accomplished by a company that has created genetically modified mosquitos that mate with a female and her offspring either dies or produces only males. So it can be done, but the environmental impact needs to be studied some more. It's also interesting that mosquitos have served as a barrier for humans and other mammals to enter certain areas. An example would be the Amazon rain forest. As humans clear cut this area, Mosquitos will attack and what new diseases will force us to move away from these areas? A very good book and well worth the long read.

The introduction had me hooked, so I excitedly bought the book. The first couple of chapters are very heavily history based, as in way back to the beginning of recorded human history. Of course this book is gonna be history based, but I found myself a little bored reading ancient history. I stopped reading it, but I plan on picking it up again and forcing myself through the ancient history to get to the more modern history which I'm more interested in.

In college I majored in environmental science and had to take several courses that dealt with mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit. Ironically, although I didn't end up working in that field, I did wind up as board member of one of the largest mosquito control districts in the country and learned even more about these pesky little critters. I have been in discussions with several experts (including a board member who dedicated his life to research mosquitoes and has a mosquito named after him) about what, exactly, would happen ecologically if mosquitoes were wiped off the face of the earth. Although no one has the exact answer, the only niche the mosquito seems to have is to transmit diseases between various species. So, removing the mosquito from the world seems to have no impact on the environment. This book discusses the mosquitoes role in history and is very readable. Mosquitoes date back to long before humans and may even have played a role in the demise of dinosaurs. That is literally how long they have been buzzing around. The author tracks the mosquito through history and the diseases that it transmitted, which played huge roles in military history, as well as other aspects of civilization. About the only real complaint I have about the book is the author's anthropomorphizing of the mosquito. By referring to them as General Aedes and General Anopheles he makes it sound like they take sides. Mosquitoes are neutral and only seek to suck your blood. They have no interest in what side you are on, other than that your blood is warm. Aside from that, I highly recommend the book. It might shed some insight into areas of history that have been glossed over about why which side might have won or why civilizations have had more problems than others. Overall this book is a fascinating read!

I grew up in the Mississippi delta without air conditioning and mosquitoes were constant companions in the warm months of the year. I was one of those kids who would follow the mosquito fogger truck around the neighborhood and ride my bike in and out of the emitted insecticidal fog. When I came across this book I had to get it and read it. This book is not so much about the mosquito as it is about the mosquito as a vector for diseases like malaria and yellow fever that undermined military campaigns throughout history as naive forces came in to contact with diseases like malaria and yellow fever to which they had little or no immunity. I learned that sick soldiers are much more of a burden to armies than dead soldiers, malaria was used to treat syphilis (spirochetes cook in the fever), malaria inhibits the blood thinner in mosquito saliva so they have to bite more folks to get their full blood meal, there was no malaria in the New World (but there were mosquitoes) before it came over with the Europeans and Africans, and for now you're only safe in Antarctica. There are lots of other interesting little tidbits strewn throughout the book, but you have to wade through a lot of conflict to get them. That's OK, it was kind of a nice review of major conflicts throughout history.

Armies march and meet others in battle. Nations and empires fall. All of these brought about by the actions of humans - right? Wrong. For years I have known that arthropod-borne diseases had affected human history more than is generally thought. Even if you are not killed by the disease it might well make you ineffectual in a battle situation and alter the course of an easy struggle to become a rout. Zinsser wrote about some of this in "Rats, Lice and History,' but his book is dated (1935), he concentrated on louse-borne diseases, and he lacked much of the background and advances available today. Mosquitoes are especially important in this regard because they transmit malaria, yellow fever and dengue, among many other diseases. Now Timothy Winegard has corrected the record and placed the position of mosquito-vectored diseases into their proper historical context in "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.". This is a great read and it will keep the reader involved to the end of its nearly 500 pages. It will also cure the reader of the illusion that we humans have control over historic events. I highly recommend it!

I really, really enjoy this book. I’m about half way through reading it. If I don’t comment now, I will forget! I like history and this book is a fascinating way to revisit world history and think about how much the mosquito has affected that history! Every paragraph is packed full of interesting facts. It’s fun to pause after each page and think about what I just read. The way the author writes, I can’t wait to turn the page and see what is next. I’d also like to share that I am reading this book out loud to a well educated and well traveled person whose vision isn’t as good as it used to be and that person likes the book as much as I do.

This book is a summary of other books and offers very little that is new. By summary, I mean the conclusions of other historians are cited though the path they took to get to those conclusions - the research and field studies - is largely glossed over. The author acknowledges these "brilliant accounts" continuously throughout his own book leading one to wonder why this book was written. The author also has a tendency to go off on tangents (he really dislikes Disney's treatment of Pocahontas, for example) and too often tries to touch base on current culture. For those having an interest on the role of mosquito-conveyed illnesses on human history, I think the work of Webb, Packard, and, to a lesser extent, Diamond cover the ground and often cover ground he tends to neglect, such as areas of the world at times when Europeans were not involved, such as the role of the mosquito during the unification and rise of China. On the other hand, for readers interested in going into depth and more thoroughly encountering the history and science involved in this subject, then this book supplies a good overview and a comprehensive reference list.

He is so focused upon the nefarious mosquito that he seems to miss that he begins repeating himself. He will give a tip of the hat in a chapter to some historical aspect and then in a following chapter go into further detail about the very same factoid. Mostly, he follows a chronological timeline (except when he backtracks). It is not the page-turner that I expected. I have not finished reading but the scary general sense is that I want to encase myself in a plastic bubble slathered with insect repellent. The shock to me is that pregnant women become special targets and victims of this blood sucker. It would be a movie horror film if the actual virus' carried were not so deadly and disabling.