Publishers Weekly
★ 03/03/2025
New York Times science columnist Zimmer (Life’s Edge) delivers an invigorating chronicle of how humanity’s understanding of airborne microbes has evolved from the 19th century through the Covid pandemic. He notes that early scientific efforts to understand airborne life included French chemist Louis Pasteur’s ascent of an Alpine glacier to test whether germs were “everywhere in the air at all times” or varied in density depending on location. Detailing the clever experiments that confirmed germs could spread via airborne particles, Zimmer describes how in 1934, Harvard University scientist William Wells sampled air from a lecture hall as he used a fan to spread sneezing powder through the room. Samples collected after class showed the most bacterial growth, indicating that germs from sneezing students collected not just on surfaces where saliva droplets had fallen but also in the air. The closing chapters bring Zimmer’s larger ambitions into focus as he blends the stimulating history with first-rate reporting on the Covid pandemic, explaining that the medical community’s continued skepticism of Wells’s ideas meant medical professionals accepted only belatedly that Covid spread through airborne particles instead of droplets on surfaces, resulting in mixed messages about the effectiveness of masks that had deadly consequences. This astute history of the scientific debates that shaped the Covid crisis will take readers’ breath away. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Air-Borne:
"What is in the air we breathe? That is the question Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times science writer, sets out to answer in this brisk, lyrical tour of aerobiology — from germ warfare and the identification of airborne viruses to the proliferation of Covid and lifesaving discoveries that lend color and shape to the invisible." —The New York Times
"Meticulously researched…at once a popular science book, a historical monograph, a public policy lesson, and a comprehensive primer on the subdiscipline of science known as ‘aerobiology,’ practitioners of which study this very topic. The final three chapters of Air-Borne constitute the most comprehensive scientific history of COVID-19 that I have read. Informed by personal interviews with many top officials, physicians, and scientists, Zimmer’s reporting is equal parts riveting and infuriating." —Science
"Another brilliant work from one of the very best science writers, Air-Borne will leave you agog at the incredible world that floats unseen around us, and outraged at the forces that stopped us from appreciating that world until, for many people, it was too late. It is a book about how much there is still left to know, and how frustrating it can be to turn knowledge into wisdom." —Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World
"A fish doesn’t know it’s wet. And we rarely recognize that we are bathed in air, air carrying multitudes of microbes. Air-Borne chronicles the history of this insight. With Zimmer’s usual superb writing, it is filled with fascinating science, visionary scientists who were often completely wrong, and poignant moments reflecting the vast human suffering caused by such microbes. And throughout is dread that makes Air-Borne a page-turner – the knowledge that the air eventually carried SARS-Cov2 and may yet bring something worse. Air-Borne is deeply important and unsettling." —Robert Sapolsky, New York Times bestselling author of Determined
"An extraordinary history of the perils and promise of every breath we take." —James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath
"Carl Zimmer details the long history of studying microbes in the air and explains why that science got derailed. It’s a fascinating and also cautionary tale." —Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker
“Carl Zimmer has a knack for seeing the small things but thinking big. Air-Borne is full of fascinations at both levels. From the first page, you know you’re in the hands of a master.” —David Quammen, New York Times bestselling author of Breathless
“The air we breathe is the most important thing in the world to us. Yet most of us pay no attention to it. Carl Zimmer has. Through his signature in-depth reporting and lively narrative stories, he shows us what a dynamic force our air is, profoundly shaping our health and evolutionary history. Air-Borne is also an urgent call to understand the invisible species floating around us, so that we don't make the same mistakes in the next public-health crisis that we face.”—Sam Kean, author of Caesar's Last Breath
“Detailed and gripping . . . . Air-Borne shows us the ways seeing where we live means listening deeply — and being prepared to see what’s perhaps never been seen.” —Robert Sullivan, The New York Times
"[A] meticulous history." —David A. Shaywitz, The Wall Street Journal
“With exhaustive detail and impressive breadth, Zimmer chronicles the multigenerational comeback of a nearly lost science.” —Scientific American
"Astonishing...From airborne espionage and bioweapons to our latest understanding of COVID, Zimmer aims to lead readers on an exciting, surprising and eye-opening journey into the atmosphere." —Scientific American, 10 Most Anticipated "Microhistories" Coming Out in 2025
“Air-Borne is a fascinating story of the evolution of a highly interdisciplinary field over centuries…it presents both a birds-eye and a microscopic view of life in the atmosphere and its profound effects on humans.” —Nature
“For decades, experts have pushed the idea that the government should pay more attention to the quality of indoor air. . . Zimmer shows the long arc of this argument.” —Roxanne Khamsi, The Atlantic
"An astute, accessible look at science’s hard-won understanding of our air." —Kirkus
“Breathtaking facts plus superior science writing equals engaging, essential reading.” —Booklist (Starred Review)
“New York Times science columnist Zimmer (Life’s Edge) delivers an invigorating chronicle of how humanity’s understanding of airborne microbes has evolved from the 19th century through the Covid pandemic…This astute history of the scientific debates that shaped the Covid crisis will take readers’ breath away.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A history of aerobiology would normally be a book that would have little interest beyond the science community. But in 'Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breath,' Carl Zimmer transforms the topic into something that reads like a combination of detective and horror stories…a highly relevant and gripping history of the study of the air that spans from Louis Pasteur holding a glass globe on a glacier to scientists racing to fight COVID-19 during the pandemic… As Zimmer puts it, the pandemic 'made the ocean of gases surrounding us visible.' His book is a key guide for understanding that ocean.” —Associated Press
"A reminder that the current decisions humans make regarding airborne life is informed by a deep history.” —Science News
“Virtuosic…Air-Borne soars while bringing to earth the web of invisible lives that connect to our own.” —Hamilton Cain, On the Sea Wall
Kirkus Reviews
2024-12-13
What we know—and continue to learn—about a substance that sustains us.
In this enlightening history, Zimmer writes of efforts to study the “gaseous ocean in which we all live,” which “contains exhaled viruses that can then be inhaled.” Air itself became an embattled space during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as theNew York Times science writer shows, such discord isn’t without precedent. His opening chapters evoke dreadful images—14th-century plague doctors tried to evade infection by wearing masks with beaks that contained, among other substances, “the ground remains of human mummies”—and explain advances made by visionary scientists and physicians. In 1864, responding to a colleague who disagreed with his theories about airborne microorganisms, Louis Pasteur used lab tools and edifying props during a pivotal Sorbonne lecture on his “hunt for floating germs.” Inspired by Pasteur’s breakthroughs, Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began using carbolic acid when treating compound fractures, substantially reducing infections. In the 20th century, William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells, husband-and-wife collaborators, made essential contributions to the study of airborne viruses. But, Zimmer notes, “their difficult personalities” and misinterpretations of their findings robbed them of due credit, a measure of which arrived posthumously when doctors treating Covid-19 cited the importance of William’s work (while mostly ignoring Mildred’s role). A recurring theme is the “failure of imagination” that has prevented governments and global organizations alike from recognizing “the full threat of an airborne disease.” Such failures, many scientists believe, contributed to avoidable Covid-19 deaths. Alongside informative chapters about terrifying government projects to build airborne biological weapons, Zimmer recounts some of the field’s more cinematic episodes. In the 1930s, researchers dropped a spore-collecting device from a helium balloon piloted by military men wearing leather football helmets.
An astute, accessible look at science’s hard-won understanding of our air.
