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Dangerous Miracle

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

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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

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Riveting … has the essential hallmarks of all good science writing: boundless enthusiasm, ingenious metaphors and the effortless distillation of complex ideas into crisp, clean prose … In combining the passion of Robert Macfarlane with the incisiveness of Patrick Radden Keefe, Shaw has announced himself as a brilliant new voice in science writing (Rachel Clarke)
This history of scientific discovery and corporate greed ... chronicles arguably the most significant technological advance of the 20th century ... Shaw’s lively history is a valiant attempt to shine a spotlight on the crisis [of antibiotic resistance] and it's a stark warning of how humanity has squandered a precious resource
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)
A fascinating deep-dive into a medical success story that we take for granted at our peril (Sarah Gilbert, author of Vaxxers)
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)
A terrific history of antibiotics ... Superb. He demonstrates an unusual ability to make science seem not only accessible but also beautiful (Druin Burch)
Antiobiotics are precious, but we have been reckless with them from the start, argues Liam in Dangerous Miracle, a concise, carefully wrought and engaging history of this essential drug class … Distilling the story of antitbiotics into eleven pithy chapters is not easy, and the strength of Shaw’s approach lies in his choice of the anecdotes that accompany each drug … The point, made vividly throughout this book, is to stop taking them for granted
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)
This enthralling and wonderfully accessibly debut charts the human history of a drug we all rely on but that we are rapidly burning through like a fossil fuel of medicine (Caroline Sanderson)
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