The seventh edition of Microbiology: A Human Perspective has gone through a remarkable makeover to gain an attractive new look. However, the authors are the same—Eugene Nester is now a senior consultant, while Denise Anderson has increased her authorship responsibilities. The book is organized into five parts: 1) life and death of microorganisms; 2) the microbial world; 3) microorganisms and humans; 4) infectious diseases; and 5) applied microbiology.
All chapters begin with “A Glimpse of History” which, though accurate, fails to illustrate the scientific process leading to new discoveries. Most chapters include a final section, “Future Challenges,” that does a better job at helping students understand the ongoing scientific discoveries needed to fully comprehend our world. The information is well presented in this microbiology textbook. The figures are interactive and the text explains them carefully. Each chapter is covered thoroughly and the book has been updated to include recent findings. The glossary will help students to learn key words in each chapter. The questions and exercises at the end of each chapter are well designed and will test student understanding of what was presented in that chapter. The illustrations have been updated in this edition, not so much in content as in the colors and style. The new illustrations are vibrant in colors and some have a three dimensional effect that makes them more engaging. A new feature of this edition are small text boxes called “Microbytes,” which are nice, but could be more interesting and powerful if they were a little more detailed and not such simple bits of information.
Part IV of the textbook includes chapters on infectious diseases while incorporating some of the basic concepts from parts I, II, and III. This section is important for allied health students and so is specially highlighted with purple shading at the top corners of pages for easy reference. The chapters in this part also include a section “Anatomy, Physiology and Ecology” that will help allied health students to review human anatomy and physiology and understand the ecology of microbial diseases of the human body systems. However, presentation of more case studies would provide better ‘human perspective’ of this integrative concept.
LearnSmart (http://learnsmart.prod.customer.mcgraw-hill.com/) is an adaptive learning program that can be accessed with a code that comes with the textbook. By registering at the website, students can access a personalized review for each chapter. Students are presented with multiple choice questions and they have to rank how confident they are in their answers. Based on each response, the program determines the next content that will be presented. In this way each question is tailored to each student’s specific needs. An interesting feature of this software is that the instructor can have an insight into student learning process since it is possible to get an updated report on student performance. However, the instructor does not have the capability to upload their own set of questions into the review modules.
Overall, the new edition of this familiar and widely used microbiology text has been revised and updated remarkably well and should be well-received by students and instructors alike. However, like many other biology textbooks, scientific knowledge is mostly presented as a long and complex list of facts rather than the result of well-planned experiments conceived in curiosity and designed to answer specific questions. The major concern with this approach is that when our students are faced with a new and perhaps essential question about microorganisms, they may not know how to look for or how to deduce the answer!