Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to share their expertise
and experience with me while researching this book: Lucy Aplin, Nim
Arinaminpathy, Wendy Barclay, Barbara Casu, Nicholas Christakis,
Toby Davies, Dean Eckles, Paul Fine, Jemma Geoghegan, Andy
Haldane, Heidi Larson, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Kristian Lum,
Brendan Nyhan, Andrew Odlyzko, Whitney Phillips, John Potterat,
Charlie Romford, Gary Slutkin, Briony Swire-Thompson, Jamie
Tehrani, Melissa Tracy, Alex Vespignani, Charlotte Watts, and
Duncan Watts. Thanks also to those who helped source historical
data and documents: Victoria Cranna and Alison Forsey at the
LSHTM Library & Archives Service, Liina Hultgren at the Royal
Institution, and Peter Vinten-Johansen at the John Snow Archive and
Research Companion. If there are any errors in the final text, they
are mine alone.
I’ve been fortunate to have had some great mentors during my
career, who have encouraged me to engage with wider audiences as
well as helping me develop as a researcher: Julia Gog at the
University of Cambridge, Steven Riley at Imperial College London,
and John Edmunds at LSHTM. Thanks also to many, many other
collaborators and colleagues I’ve worked with and learnt from over
the years. In particular, the ideas in this book have benefitted both
directly and indirectly from discussions with my brilliant colleagues in
the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at
LSHTM. As any popular science writer will know, I faced the obstacle
of there being far more good research out there than I could ever fit
into one book. Inevitably, I had to leave out several people and
projects during the writing and editing stages, and this is of course
no reflection on my views about the quality of the science.
I’d also like to thank everyone involved in the writing process. My
excellent editors Cecily Gayford at Profile and Fran Barrie at
Wellcome Collection have provided valuable ideas and input
throughout. Thanks as well to Joe Staines for his work on