Introduction
Machupo: Bolivian hemorragic fever
Health transition: the age of optimism, setting out to eradicate disease
Monkey kidneys and the ebbing tides: Marburg virus, yellow fever, and the Brazilian meningitis epidemic
Into the woods: lassa fever
Yambuku: Ebola
The American bicentennial: swine flu and Legionnaires' Disease
N'zara: lassa, ebola, and the developing world's economic and social policies
Revolution: genetic engineering and the discovery of oncogenes.

Microbe Magnets: urban centers of disease
Distant thunder: sexually transmitted diseases and injecting drug users
Hatari: vinidogodogo (danger: a very little thing): the origins of AIDS
Feminine hygiene (as debated, mostly, by men): toxic shock syndrome
The revenge of the germs, or just keep inventing new drugs: drug-resistant bacteria, viruses, and parasites
Thirdworldization: the interactions of poverty, poor housing, and social despair with disease
All in good haste: hantaviruses in America.

Nature and homo sapiens: seal plague, cholera, global warming, biodiversity, and the microbial soup
Searching for solutions: preparedness, surveillance, and the new understanding
Afterword.