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  • Published: 11 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241510551
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $37.00

Preventable

How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One




The definitive and Sunday Times-bestselling story of COVID-19 from the pandemic's go-to science communicator

We all experienced COVID-19 personally and through rolling news coverage. We had glimpses of what other countries were doing, but we saw the UK and US response play out in detail, with guest appearances from China and Italy along the way. Preventable is the first book to give a global account of this catastrophic world event.

Combining science, politics, ethics and economics, this definitive book dissects the global structures that determine our fate, and reveals the deep-seated economic and social inequalities at their heart - it will challenge, outrage and inspire.

  • Published: 11 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241510551
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $37.00

About the author

Devi Sridhar

Devi Sridhar is Professor and Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. She has served as a policy advisor for the WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Scottish, UK and German governments. Devi writes for the Guardian and regularly appears on broadcast media. This is her first book for a general readership.

Praise for Preventable

Devi is a public health expert with deep knowledge and expertise in the field. She has a unique ability to translate complex public health challenges, research and recommendations into language experts and non-experts alike can understand. I always read and listen to what she has to say and I hope you will too

Chelsea Clinton

One of the most brilliant scientists in the world who has been proven consistently right in this crisis

Piers Morgan

Those who have found Professor Devi Sridhar's expertise and calm advice invaluable since the arrival of Covid-19 will be glad to know that she has written Preventable

Rachel Cooke, Guardian, 'Nonfiction to look out for in 2022'

Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh university, examines how the pandemic changed the world and how we might stop the next one happening

Financial Times, 'The books to read in 2022'

Brilliant. I read it like a thriller that I had lived through, a fascinating, detailed and personal account of the pandemic that takes you behind and beyond the headlines. I suspect it will be the most readable account of all the analyses that will follow

Chris van Tulleken

Excellent . . . Fair, clear and compelling. And like all of Devi's contributions over the course of the pandemic, very accessible

Nicola Sturgeon

Contributions such as Devi's will be the building blocks of the learning we need, as a global community, to create the awareness required for the healthier and safer world all people deserve

Dr Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organization

The sensational story of how a disaster was turned into a catastrophe, with the clarity, precision and humanity that you would expect from one of the most important voices of reason of the COVID era. A brutally compelling reminder that if voices like Devi's had been listened to, so many more could have lived

Owen Jones

Essential reading

Lorraine Kelly

Sridhar's prescience transformed her into one of Britain's most prominent commentators once . . . In her new book, Preventable, Sridhar distils the lessons of the time

George Eaton, New Statesman

Powerful . . . If we're to stop history from repeating itself when the next pandemic pathogen emerges, books such as Preventable are very much welcome

Oliver Barnes, Financial Times