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Dangerous Miracle

A natural history of antibiotics – and how we burned through them

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Dangerous Miracle

By: Liam Shaw
Narrated by: Liam Shaw
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Antibiotics: one of humanity’s greatest achievements – but invented by microbes.

An epic narrative of discovery and innovation – but also of extraction and exploitation.

This is the spellbinding story of how we have burned through the fossil fuels of medicine.

Since their advent, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, marking one of the greatest medical advances in our history. Dangerous Miracle weaves together the grand arc of the evolution of antibiotics over millions of years with a history of the past century: first as we mined the earth for naturally occurring antibiotic molecules, then as we learned to synthesise our own.

But like fossil fuels, antibiotics are a finite resource which we’ve regarded as a cheap, everlasting fuel. They are unlike other drugs: every time we use them we increase the possibility of antibiotic resistance emerging, risking their future effectiveness. If we want antibiotics to have a future, we need to prepare to adapt. And fast.

Rich with pioneering characters, great breakthroughs and grave risks, Dangerous Miracle is a grand drama of science, history and politics. It is a revelatory account of the miraculous history and uncertain future of antibiotics from a gifted writer.

'Brilliant' TIM SPECTOR
'Excellent' HENRY MARSH
'Thrilling' VENKI RAMAKRISHNAN

© Liam Shaw 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Biological Sciences Biology History History & Commentary History & Philosophy Medicine & Health Care Industry Science Natural History Medicine

Critic Reviews

Excellent - a highly readable account of scientific success in the past and Big Pharma's egregious inability to deal with the growing problem of antibiotic resistance (Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm)
Everyone needs to know about antibiotics - the good, the bad and the ugly! This is a brilliant history lesson (Tim Spector, author of Food for Life)
An enjoyable and absolutely essential read. The next global pandemic might not be a virus at all – it could be a drug-resistant bacterium, as antibiotics stop working and common infections turn deadly. As Shaw passionately argues in this compelling history, we urgently need a new approach (Kate Bingham, author of The Long Shot)
In this eye-opening and thrilling account of the discovery of antibiotics and the global threat of rising resistance, full of striking examples, Shaw brilliantly shows how science has repeatedly been influenced and corrupted by industrial and financial interests. This is not only an important history you never knew, it is also a vital call to arms to change the way that new drugs are discovered. Essential reading for everybody (Matthew Cobb, author of The Genetic Age)
In Dangerous Miracle, Liam Shaw traces the rise of modern antibiotics, and foresees their decline amidst the ongoing war between bacteria and antibiotic drugs. The central theme is critically important, but Shaw's book is also tremendously entertaining as he describes the origins and development of many of the 'greatest hit' antibiotics that together have saved millions of lives. Well worth reading (Adam Alter, author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough)
We live in an age when antibiotics are taken for granted and diseases that were once a death sentence are now routinely cured. But they have been around only a few decades and today we face a growing crisis of resistant bacteria due to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. This book outlines in wonderful detail what it was like before antibiotics, and how complicated and transformative the discovery of each new antibiotic was. It is a thrilling collection of stories which reminds us of how precious they are, and how important it is to develop new antibiotics to prevent the plagues of the future (Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, author of Why We Die)
A fascinating deep-dive into a medical success story that we take for granted at our peril (Sarah Gilbert, author of Vaxxers)
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