Rat City

"In Rat City, Adams and Ramsden unearth an entire hidden history of the twentieth century city and its anxieties; a fascinating and deeply researched book, as well as a vital reference point for our own age of urban stress." — Des Fitzgerald, author of The City Of Today Is A Dying Thing

“John Calhoun epitomized the scientist in postwar America: ambitious, rigorous, and occasionally deluded, with lab mice at his feet and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Rat City deftly explores his vision and its reverberations on the social life of Americans, with our lonely crowds, empty skyscrapers, and psychotic incels. It's history that feels all too relevant.”  — Dan Piepenbring, co-author of CHAOS!

“As human populations threaten to overwhelm the planet, the question ‘How do we live well together?’ is now recognized as an existential challenge for our species. This book tells the story of a scientist who saw this coming through the unlikely means of rat experiments–and of the extraordinary and terrible success of his research program in shaping today’s urban life. A gripping tale of the power and reach of laboratory science, [based] on twenty years of ground-breaking research.”   
—Sabina Leonelli, author of Data-Centric Biology

"A captivating account [of] the career of John B. Calhoun, in whose hands the behavior of rats provided clarion lessons for the fate of a rapidly urbanizing humanity.” — Erika Lorraine Milam, author of Creatures of Cain

“[A] rare science story that covers a dazzling breadth of inquiry without sacrificing depth of insight…Rat City covers everything from anthropology to zoology, but Adams’s and Ramsden’s sharp prose makes it digestible and tremendously engaging thanks to a gift for analogy, masterful pacing, understated humor, and an eye for the suspense and drama inherent in scientific pursuit…Equal parts biography and science writing, it captures one man’s intellectual passion and the stakes of our entire species’ quest to live together.” — Lawrence Lanahan, author of The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest to Cross Baltimore’s Racial Divide

“Adams and Ramsden lay a trail of delightful historical bread crumbs for readers to follow: industrial standardization, psychobiology, slum rehabilitation, the biological clock, rat control, the Cold War, homeostasis and fight-or-flight. The pay-off (spoiler alert): a science of animal ecology as disturbingly applicable to humans as it is to rodents…Brilliant.”
— Michael Sappol, author of Queer Anatomies