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Steven Johnson's book The Ghost Map was about Snow's map and the process that went into creating it. A good read if you have the opportunity.

A 'further reading' is not a reference; 'further reading' means 'here are additional sources you might find relevant about material not covered here'. Which of 'Triumph of the City', 'The Ghost Map', and 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' did the stuff about animals come from, if you hadn't already read them? That's right - you don't know! Because he's not giving a reference.

Don't get me wrong: it would be awesome if the iPad was just as good for production as consumption.

My girlfriend (a university professor) is in the process of finishing her first book, and would love to do the rest of her writing and revising on the iPad in Pages, but she doesn't see it as being realistic. She's still really excited about being able to watch Battlestar Galactica on the iPad. (regarding BSG: yes, I am lucky.)

I spend all of my time writing code in Ruby and Objective C. I'd love to be able to get access to MRI, the Rails gems, MySQL and TextMate on the iPad in order to do my work there, but it's just not realistic. And that's ok: because I am unbelievably excited about the web browsing experience and the games on the iPad.

Edit: I amend my comments above with a Tweet from the author of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air: http://twitter.com/stevenbjohnson/status/11564792495

In the west a couple of hundred years ago, we used a mixture of religion and shame to achieve the transformation of behavior necessary to meet these sanitation goals.

"Cleanliness is next to godliness" was a slogan of that movement.

It took, more or less, a century to make the change. A big step in the right direction was the 1854 discovery by Dr. John Snow that removing the handle from a public water pump in London could slow a cholera pandemic. The well was contaminated by human feces. Steven Johnson wrote it up in his book The Ghost Map.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/ghost-map-the-story-of-londons...

A board of church directors (a vestry) owned that pump, and Dr. Snow had to talk them into approving his plan. It wasn't easy: he was denying the conventional pious wisdom of the time. But they went for it.

Then cleaning up cities required major advances in civil engineering technology: things we take for granted today in the west, like interceptor sewers and and treatment plants.

Whether or not PM Modi is a politician who toots his own horn is irrelevant to this project. Its benefits will outlast everyone alive today. Go for it, India!

Steven Berlin Johnson - The Ghost Map: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594482691