The Rules of Contagion

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'It is hard to imagine a more timely book ... much of the modern world will make more sense having read it.' The Times'Brilliant and authoritative' - Alex Bellos, author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland '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.' Financial TimesWhy do some ideas take off - and others fail to spread? Why are some diseases predictable, and others swamped in uncertainty? And what about the outbreaks that never happen at all?We live in a world that's more connected than ever before. But even as we see our lives being shaped by the spread of ideas, trends - and even diseases - we sometimes struggle to grasp how it actually works. Outbreaks seem to be driven by randomness and hidden laws, and in order to understand them, we need to start thinking like mathematicians....