Editions

The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone

  • The Chilling True Story of an Ebola Outbreak

COMING TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON 27 MAY 2019
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In March 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported. By October 2014, it had become the largest and deadliest occurrence of the disease.

Over 4,500 people have died. Almost 10,000 cases have been reported, across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States.

Impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone is the terrifying, true-life account of when this highly infectious virus spread from the rainforests of Africa to the suburbs of Washington, D.C in 1989. A secret SWAT team of soldiers and scientists were quickly tasked with halting the outbreak. And they did. But now, that very same virus is back. And we could be just one wrong move away from a pandemic.

Reviews

  • One of the most terrifying books I've ever read. Move over Stephen King and Michael Crichton - this really happened, within sight of the Washington Monument. And sooner or later it will happen again

    Arthur C. Clarke

  • Reads like a nightmarish Stephen King thriller...It will keep you awake at night because you know that this is not a figment of the author's imagination

    Today

  • A nightmarish scenario...dramatic...frightening

    Daily Mail

  • The spookiest story of 1994...A terrifying premonition of what might come out of the woods

    The Sunday Times

  • The first chapter of The Hot Zone is one of the most horrifying things I've read in my entire life...And then it gets worse. What a remarkable piece of work. I devoured it in two or three sittings and have a feeling the memories will linger a long time

    Stephen King

More from this Author

About the Author

Richard Preston

Richard Preston was born in 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and received a Ph.D from Princeton University. He is the author of The Hot Zone; American Steel (about the Nucor Corporation's project to build a revolutionary steel mill); and First Light (about astronomy and astronomists) which won the American Institute of Physics award in science writing. An asteroid has been named 'Preston' in honour of First Light. Preston is a lump of rock the size of lower Manhattan. It is likely some day to collide with Mars or the Earth. Richard Preston is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and has won numerous awards, including the AAAS-Westinghouse Award and the McDermott Award in the Arts from MIT.

Richard Preston

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