The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

This book is a fascinating study of emerging infectious diseases throughout the world. Like most such books, it is a bit alarmist in tone, and it is full of attacks on (mostly Republican) politicians for not taking effective policy measures to prevent and combat new epidemics. Apart from its somewhat shrill alarm-sounding, however, it provides an intriguing history of most of the investigative research done on infectious diseases in the last century, much of which was carried out by intrepid and adventurous field researchers in far-off countries. A highly engaging and deliberately unsettling work by a thorough and meticulous author.