JOHN POSTGATE is emeritus professor of microbiology at the University of Sussex and former director of the AFRC Unit of Nitrogen Fixation. During his scientific career he specialized on sulfur bacteria and bacterial cell death.

Microbes and Man
by John Postgate
Cambridge University Press, 4th ed, 2000, 1967

This book gives an easy to understand overview of the role microorganism - bacteria, viruses, parasites - play in Nature. As many microbes cause diseases in man, animals, and plants, many more are crucial and beneficial for the survival of higher organisms and the entire ecosystem. The book emphasizes the role microbes play for man. How microbes shape our lives from nutrition, industrial production, pollution, to infection. It explains in detail the roles of microbes in cleaning up the environment, how they make soil fertile, are important for food technology, production of vitamins, or as sources of antibiotics, but also how they spoil food and cause disease.

February 20, 2002 /  © 2002 Lukas K. Buehler / go back to Book Review Home