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Sebastian Ritscher
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APOLLO'S ARROW

Nicholas Christakis

The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live

An in-depth, science-backed look at how the coronavirus pandemic took hold, how we might recover, and what it means for our future by renowned physician, sociologist, and New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Christakis.
APOLLO'S ARROW offers a riveting account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on society as it unfolded in 2020, and on how the recovery will unfold in the coming years. Drawing on a combination of fascinating case studies and cutting-edge research from a range of scientific disciplines, bestselling author, physician, and sociologist Nicholas Christakis explores what it means to live in a time of plague -- an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species as a whole.

Unleashing new divisions in our society and new opportunities for cooperation, this 21st century pandemic has upended our society in ways that will test, but not vanquish, our already frayed culture's capacity to endure and thrive. Featuring many novel, provocative arguments and vivid examples ranging across medicine, history, sociology, epidemiology, data science, and genetics, APOLLO'S ARROW envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.


Nicholas A. Christakis, MPH, MD, PhD, is a physician and sociologist who explores the ancient origins and modern implications of human nature. He directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University, where he is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, in the Departments of Sociology, Medicine, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistics and Data Science, and Biomedical Engineering. He is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science, and is the New York Times bestselling author of BLUEPRINT (2019) and the co-author of CONNECTED (2009). Christakis has been featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Wired, on NPR radio, and many other major publications and outlets. He has been named in Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers list, and has previously been featured in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list. The New York Times and other outlets have recognized his contributions to public discourse about the pandemic as "invaluable primers," and his tweets about the pandemic, in the month of March 2020, had 100,000,000 impressions (he has 155,000 followers). Research and software tools from his lab have been covered repeatedly in major domestic and international newspapers and magazines (including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Newsweek, Time, and The Economist), and he has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS on many occasions, including around the coronavirus pandemic. He also contributes editorial commentary to the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and others.
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Published 2020-10-27 by Spark / Little Brown

Comments

piece by Nicholas Christakis on understanding Covid 19 Read more...

Nicholas Christakis is a pioneer in bridging the conceptual chasm between the choices of individual people and the shaping of an entire society.

Nicholas Christakis zooms out, Yuval Noah Harari style, to look at how evolution shapes civilizations. Remarkably broad, deep, and provocative.

To capture the COVID-19 pandemic requires unusually broad and deep scholarship, and an ability to integrate the too-often siloed domains of science, medicine, epidemiology, sociology, psychology, politics, and history, among other fields. In APOLLO'S ARROW, Nicholas Christakis accomplishes this challenging task as few others could, with unusual clarity and an endless array of surprising insights; this book will no doubt become essential reading for a very wide audience. A tour-de-force.

A dazzlingly erudite synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more.

Authoritative... A welcome assessment of the reality of the epidemic that has changed our lives ... a cogent, deeply informative overview of the coronavirus pandemic, taking into consideration the biology of the pathogen and the social, economic, psychological, and political impacts of the virus on society. Read more...

Rich in psychological, sociological, and epidemiological insights, only Nicholas Christakis could write a book this comprehensive and profound and even optimistic during our national calamity.

Apollo's Arrow shoots straight and true to explain the scientific and social aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. Christakis's background in biology, medicine, epidemiology, and sociology is a powerful formula for understanding this complex subject. I'm tempted to say that the gods created Christakis to write this book at this time. It is wise, vivid, and engaging.

China: Truth & Wisdom Press ; Greece: Kaktos Publications ; Italy: Il Pensiero Scientifico ; Japan: Kodansha ; Korea: Will Books ; Portugal: Vogais ; Romania: Curtea Veche ; Spain: La Esfera de los Libros ; Turkey: Othaki

APOLLO'S ARROW will also be featured on the front cover (below) of the New York Times Book Review for the week of November 15, calling the book "a useful contribution to this initial wave of Covid books, sensible and comprehensive, intelligent and well sourced.".

Nicholas Christakis's Saturday Essay: The Long Shadow of the Pandemic: 2024 and Beyond - Even when the world returns to 'normal,' the legacy of Covid-19 will transform everything from wages and health care to political attitudes and global supply chains. ... Read more...

Nicholas Christakis has given his rapidly written yet magisterial book about the pandemic the title Apollo's Arrow... In some respects, Apollo's Arrow is an instant history of an event that is by no means over. This is a hard thing to pull off, but Christakis does it with aplomb... Christakis fizzes with insights. Read more...

Wow, what a feat this is - a fully developed book with insight and a great narrative structure that was somehow written in the midst of a live-action recording of events. The journalist in me marvels. The failures Nicholas Christakis captures are so enormously discouraging, infuriating, and tragic. I can only imagine how long this book will be read for reasons beyond the obvious. I burned right through it and highly recommended it.

An excellent overview of the pandemic thus far, this work will be of interest to those seeking a full explanation of how we got where we are in terms of the virus and the direction we might be going.

APOLLO'S ARROW IS a Barnes & Noble best medical book of 2020

Seldom have we been gifted with a study of pandemic disease marked by such scope, wit, and erudition. Still rarer is one that appears while the rest of us scramble to make sense of a rapidly evolving crisis, one shaped by the very social forces that Nicholas Christakis has studied for decades. Apollo's Arrow is more than history's first draft. It will live on as a journal of the plague years, certainly, and it inspires as it instructs. Definitive, engaging, and astonishing. A tour-de-force.

In this brilliant and timely book, scientist, scholar, physician, and writer Nicholas Christakis shines the light of history on our dark moment, and illuminates it as no one else can. Insightful, informative, and urgently necessary, APOLLO'S ARROW is this year's must-must-read.