Plagues and Peoples

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No small themes for historian William McNeill: he is a writer of big, sweeping books, from The Rise of the West to The History of the World. Plagues and Peoples considers the influence of infectious diseases on the course of history, and McNeill pays special attention to the Black Death of the 13th and 14th centuries, which killed millions across Europe and Asia. (At one point, writes McNeill, 10,000 people in Constantinople alone were dying each day from the plague.) With the new crop of plagues and epidemics in our own time, McNeill's quiet assertion that "in any effort to understand what lies ahead the role of infectious disease cannot properly be left out of consideration" takes on new significance.

Book Description

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated editon.

Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. "A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading, offering a new perspective on human history.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing How a Few Invisible Germs Changed the World.......2007-01-19

The main thesis of William McNeill's "Plagues and People" is that disease states and the general health of various regions of the world throughout history have shaped social practices, religious thinking and political structures -- even leading to the rise and fall of entire civilizations.

MacNeill's startling, well-defended claims are fascinating, eminently quotable and worthy of re-reading. For example, the Greeks cultivated olives and grapes, which require little manual labor. Their olive oil and wine was a valuable currency around the ancient world, saving their island from the terrible scourges of disease suffered by isolated, overworked agrarian societies without urban-honed immunological defenses. He goes so far as to say that this gave the Greeks the freedom to create their highly developed culture and unparalleled psychological insights.

McNeill's august text has influenced many other scholars, but the lay reader will find this romp through history, well, infectiously entertaining. Highly recommended.

Bugs, germs and parasites.......2006-10-11

Long before Jared Diamond captured headlines and dominated bestseller lists with 'Gun, Germs and Steel," the distinguished University of Chicago historian William McNeill published "Plagues and Peoples" that carried a similar message, albeit heavily focused on the "germs" part of the equation.

McNeill's central thesis is that bacteriology has had a profound impact on the course of human history and will continue to be a fundamental component of human affairs forever. In short, communicable disease can never be fully defeated. As human population continues to grow and as technology and social revolutions change our behavior and modes of interaction, micro parasites will exploit the new opportunities to infect and kills us. He argues that humans and micro parasites have been engaged in nearly continuous combat for advantage since human beings first left the cradle of civilization in Africa.

In making this argument, McNeill offers up an interesting explanation for Africa's pitiful condition up to the present day. He claims that humans developed in the heat and moisture of the African climate and over time an ecological balance developed between man and micro parasite. The well-established micro parasitic infections were nature's way of ensuring that no one species dominated. It was only when humans discovered clothing and began moving to colder climates that did not so easily support traditional disease did the battle for primacy between man and bug begin. McNeill states that even today Africa is an example of a well functioning ecological balance where the tsetse fly and the sleeping sickness it carries, for instance, still determines the range where humans can penetrate.

McNeill stresses that the history of disease is more than simply the story of epidemics and consequent die-off of large swaths of a population. He shows that micro parasites have touched a broad spectrum of human behavior and cultural development. For instance, he argues that today's major world religions, especially Christianity and Hinduism, thrived in the epidemic disease experiences of the first century AD. Those religions provided some explanation to the apparent randomness of sudden death from a variety of ailments and it offered the hope of salvage and eternal life after death. Moreover, McNeill argues that epidemic diseases that leveled Aztec and Incan culture accelerated the acceptance of Christianity in the New World by the native population. After all, what clearer sign of the power of the European God than the immunity of the white men from the diseases that swept through the vulnerable native communities.

McNeill also demonstrates how fear of disease - particularly the global cholera outbreak of the 1830s that killed so quickly and horribly - promoted massive public health programs that eventually had a tremendous impact on industrial and economic growth. The improved sanitary conditions allowed cities to flourish and workers to remain healthy and productive. He also argues that an army's ability to conquer disease in its ranks was likely more important than its ability to conquer its enemy in open combat. Until the 20th century, the vast majority of deaths in war were the result of disease, sometimes accounting for over tens times the combat deaths. The army that could prevent such devastation had an incredible advantage.

The major breakthrough for humans, McNeill argues, was the period 1300-1700. That four century period witnessed two critical transportation revolutions: the Eurasian land route developed by the Mongols and the European-led sea-based transportation. The relatively rapid dissemination of people meant the rapid dissemination of disease. The homogenization of disease between Europe, the Middle East, India and China led to the "domestication" of epidemic disease and marked a fundamental breakthrough in world history. This interaction led many diseases to transition from crippling epidemics to manageable endemics that took the form of childhood diseases; the same diseases that decimated the New World native populations when they were exposed in the 16th century.

Lastly, it is interesting to read how long it took humans to understand how disease was spread. The fact that germs are invisible obviously played a central role in their ability to survive. But just as importantly were the different varieties of contagion that confounded the ability to explain the spread of the illness. Because some diseases are spread by human contact, such as tuberculosis and small pox, and others by insects, such as the flea for bubonic plague and the mosquito for malaria and yellow fever, while others are spread by contaminated food and water, such as cholera, no simply solution seemed to work.

After reading "Plagues and Peoples" it is difficult to see world history the same as before. Modern scholars have poked a variety of holes in McNeill's arguments but the central thesis that bacteria and viruses have often been the causative agents of technological, social and political upheaval is difficult to refute.

wordy, interesting.......2006-06-16

William Mcneill presents a different and mind-expanding take on disease: microbes, humans, and governments all function similarly to facilitate their optimal survival and expansion. When the opportunistic structure gets too greedy, it may overwhelm the host. With time and familiarity, host and parasite usually come to an uneasy alliance, which allows the survival of each. If you read "Plagues and Peoples" with this thesis in mind, it is a very interesting book. If you lose sight of the thesis, it is too easy to get bogged down in the author's extremely baroque writing style. A few reviewers concluded that the book was hard for them to comprehend because they were high school aged readers. As an older adult, compulsive reader, with a lot of patience, I have to say I experienced the same problem with this book. I checked the biographical material on the author to see if English was his second language. I felt the book read as if translated. I found myself mentally simplifying almost every sentence, not because of the complexity of the idea being conveyed, but because of unnecessary verbage. "Plagues and Peoples" does contain loads information on the history of mankind and disease, within the framework of an interesting thesis. I just feel that simpler wording would have helped the book read smoother. Another very fascinating history of man's interaction with microbes which is much more reader friendly is "Men and Microbes".

Epidemic is historic.......2006-06-13

I bought this book from Amazon, and I read it here, in Brazil.This book is really good, about this subject.In fact, epidemic killed far more peoples than all wars and dictators together.Lenin or Hitler were small killers than smallpox.In fact, smallpox exterminated, more than 70% of indian population of Mexico in XVI Century.Illness decided wars, religions, poltics and economics for all the history.
This book is very good, but being writen in 1975, this book is now a little outdated.A new sexual desease(AIDS) became a reality and after DDT's banishment, malaria is back and strong in Africa,Asia and Latin America.

Difficult Topic To Embrace For The Length Of A Book But The Information Here Is Terrifyingly True.......2005-09-18

Mcneill's examination of the history of plagues, their unavoidable hand-in-hand co-existence with all other forms of life, and their terrifying visitations upon human society throughout recorded history, is the sort of book that makes you appreciate all that you have and truly alters your outlook on life on this dangerous planet. I don't think it is understood just how easily humans could have become extinct 700 years ago during the Black Death. It is perhaps through sheer chance more than any strength in the human immune system, that accounts for the fact that we did not. The thought that diseases evolve along with all other life is horrifying as a concept, and it could be feared that the arrival of a super-plague that will eradicate ALL life on this planet is less a matter of "what-if" and more a matter of "when".

We Are Not Immune. We Are Not Eternal. We Are Vulnerable. And Someday The End WILL Come. Will it be in the form of a biological infestation?

The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (European History Series)

Average customer rating:

A Few Probelms But Overall A Great Work
Original & thoughtful, but also some unanswered questions...
Death and Transformation...Almost!
interesting but brief
Excellent expository essay in three parts

The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (European History Series)
David Herlihy , and Samuel K., Jr. Cohn
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674076133

Book Description

In this small book David Herlihy makes subtle and subversive inquiries that challenge historical thinking about the Black Death. Looking beyond the view of the plague as unmitigated catastrophe, Herlihy finds evidence for its role in the advent of new population controls, the establishment of universities, the spread of Christianity, the dissemination of vernacular cultures, and even the rise of nationalism. This book, which displays a distinguished scholar's masterly synthesis of diverse materials, reveals that the Black Death can be considered the cornerstone of the transformation of Europe.

Customer Reviews:

A Few Probelms But Overall A Great Work.......2005-02-21

Before his untimely death in 1991 David Herlihy presented three lectures examining the Black Death and in doing so redefined the entire historical outlook on the great plague. These speeches may have been lost, if it were not for Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., who collected Herlihy's lectures and notes and presented them in a concise tome. According to Herlihy although the Black Death had a devastating affected on everything in European society, it kept European culture from getting stale. While historians originally viewed the "great plague" as a disaster that hit Europe and set European society back 100s of years, Herlihy sees the "death" as a liberating force, pushing European society forward, destroying it, but at the same time transforming it, spurring new growth and possibilities. There is a reason according to Herlihy, "that the...characteristics of the population collapse of the late Middle Ages [were] Europe's deepest and also its last."

Herlihy's thesis is a simple, yet revolutionary one: that the Black Death created the demand for labor saving devices as the population dwindled, and this in turn pushed European society forward. While most historians approached the subject from a political and military aspect, Herlihy looks at the social effects of the plague on women, art, and society in general, and comes to the conclusion that the plague was, in the long run, a good thing for Europe.

The book itself is divided into three major parts reflecting the lectures that Herlihy had delivered at the University of Maine in 1985. Cohn adds an introduction and an extensive section of End Notes, but overly keeps Herlihy's text intact. The first chapter explores the idea that the plague itself may not have been bubonic plague, which is the standard historical theory to this day. "Medical writers of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages," writes Herlihy, "recognized only one type of epidemic disease marked by only one kind of symptom, inflammations, boils, or buboes in the area of the groin, [which] the authority of the ancients may have blinded later witnesses to other symptoms, indicating the presence of other types of epidemic disease." To back up his argument Herlihy knocks down the age-old notion that the plague was spread by infected rats, moving throughout Europe. If, according to Herlihy, the "death" was bubonic, then there should be evidence of an epizootic within the rat population. "To my knowledge," Herlihy states, "not a single Western chronicler notes the occurrence of [such] an epizootic, the massive mortalities of rats, which ought to have preceded and accompanied the human plague." For Herlihy, the disease that ravaged Europe was most likely anthrax. "Anthrax can produce the characteristic swellings which might be mistaken for buboes."

The second and third chapters of the book delve into the economic impact of the plague on European society, and how that society rebounded from it. For years historians have look at the reasons behind the cause for the plague as a "Malthusian crisis." That the population had just grown too big for the land to sustain it. Herlihy disagrees with this thesis, and sees European society before the plague in more of a social deadlock, which societal numbers maintaining themselves. "The medieval experience shows us not a Malthusian crisis but a stalemate, in a sense that the community was maintaining at stable levels very large numbers over a lengthy period." To back up these arguments Herlihy relies on several medieval sources, including documents from the city of Tuscany. "In spite of frequent famine and widespread hunger, the community in ca. 1300 was successfully holding its numbers." It is necessary to point out however, that Herlihy's argument that the Black Death was in reality anthrax relies too heavily on sources from Italy, and one can find just as persuasive arguments to support the standard notion of bubonic plague. In fact Cohn shines skepticism on this theory himself in his introduction. Yet despite this slight flaw within the first section of the book, Herlihy's argument as presented in the second and third chapters, that the plague was a catalyst and driving force for change within Europe, is well supported.

The Black Death "gave to Europeans the chance to rebuild their society along much different lines," the author writes. The unprecedented drain on the labor force, especially devastating because of the feudal society, drove the need to produce labor saving devices, and thus broke the "stalemate" of that feudal society. "Europe at the time of the plague...was a society reeling under repeated, powerful shocks; burdened with huge numbers of dependents; struggling with difficulty to maintain its occupational cadres; struggling also to uphold the quality of its skilled traditions." Herlihy clearly put into perspective the situation that existed during feudal times, explaining how land use and societal class differences stagnated European culture. The plague, killing off large numbers of the labor force, created a situation in which the surviving Europeans, both Nobel and peasant classes, had to adapt in order to survive. "Above all [the plague] freed resources...mills and mill sites...[that] could now be enlisted for other uses; the fulling of cloth, the operation of bellows, the sawing of wood." While the horror of the disease took a great toll on the families who lived through it, in the long run "the late Middle Ages were a period of impressive technological achievement."

To arrive at his thesis Herlihy uses an interdisciplinary approach to the Black Death, using comparative narative, as well as a social and medical historic approach, to try and develop a model of how the disease progressed and how populations reacted. To expound on the latter, the author uses modern approaches as one way of trying to allow the reader to relate to the overwhelming effects the disease had on Europe. To do so Herlihy creates a comparative analysis with the AIDS virus, and how people reached at first to both AIDS today (homophobic feelings) and the Black Death (anti-Semitism).

To support his arguments Herlihy relies on Church sources from the 1300s, focusing on marriage and death records, drawing most of his data from Italy. This is one flaw of his work, but should be of no surprise to readers' familiar to the author's other works, as Herlihy is a Medieval Italian historian. Therefore most of his research focuses on the effect of the Black Death in Italy, and uses literature of the times (poetry and songs), to try and paint an entire picture of medieval life at the time. To even further understand the social impact of the plague on 1300 society, Herlihy uses as secondary sources monographs, and newspaper articles for comparison with modern plagues. The concentration on Italian sources however, is a weakness in his thesis, as it does not take into effect the Black Death in England, France, and several other European nations.

The book ends with an extensive section of End Notes, taken from Herlihy's "incomplete" notes, and expanded upon by Cohn. This section also serves as a Bibliography, and points the reader to other sources of information. In addition Cohn uses the notes to expand on Herlihy's lectures, providing new and updated information, and sometimes contradicting the author himself.

Unfortunately the book falls short in several places, especially in light of examining other societies that fell victim to the plague. Herlihy seems to gloss over the fact that the Black Death was a pandemic that effected more than just the people of Europe, and nether Herlihy (or Cohn for that matter), addresses the questions as to why the Middle East, also effected by the plague, did not experience the same cultural resurgence Europe did after the epidemic. Nor are the effects of plague on China mentioned. China in the 14th century was also hit hard by epidemics almost identical as that as the Black Death, yet China started falling behind Europe soon afterwards. Surely if the devastation of its society was the catalyst which prompted innovation in Europe, would it not have had the same effects in China and the Middle East? It is possible that the European transformation can just as easily be explained by a different theory: the influences of the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire, which crumbled around the same time as the Black Death was ravaging Europe, had transmitted much of China's technology (gunpowder, paper) to Europe. Over time, as these innovations slowly caught on within European society, these technological changes would have taken place regardless of the death of so much of its population. It may be that it is more to the Mongols than the plague that Europe is what it is today.

Overall what Herlihy and Cohn have achieved here is to present a theory that asked the question, was the Black Death a bad event, or good event for European society? In and of itself it poses a grand question, and allows the reader to rethink previous views regarding Europe during the 1300s. While readers interested in a more traditional "history" of the great plague will be disappointed, serious scholars will find Herlihy's arguments provocative, and thought provoking. Despite its few flaws, Herlihy's "The Black Death and the Transformation of the West" is an excellent collection which challenges the views of mainstream history, and that is always a good thing.

John Rocco Roberto
History Department, The Nelson A. Rockefeller School

Original & thoughtful, but also some unanswered questions..........2004-05-13

Herlihy makes the excellent point that the Black Death strengthened Europe in the long run (meaning over many centuries). For centuries, Europe had lagged behind China in technology and standard of living. By the 16th century, Europe was ahead, and has remained so ever since. What made the difference? Actually Phil Rushton had suggested something similar as the explanation, but Herlihy expanded on it in this book (though he probably never heard of Rushton).

The Black Death killed off something like half of Europe's population within a decade in the mid-14th century. The short-term destructive effect was incalculable. But Herlihy argues that those who were left unkilled were suddenly provided with huge resources, both natural and human, and much technical innovation became possible, which in turn launched Europe onto the road to the Industrial Revolution. As an example - the most dramatic one - he called the Gutenberg printing press a direct result of the Black Death. (p. 50) Not only was this a major technical innovation, the printing press had a greater influence than, say, a more efficient way to grow food: printing helped disseminate knowledge, even though, at first, most of this knowledge concerned religion and then only later science and technology.

Samuel Cohn used the Introduction to criticize Herlihy, which I think is not only odd but in poor taste, because Herlihy was already dead when Cohn wrote it. Cohn doubted the printing press (and by analogy, Herlihy's other examples) made much difference: far more book were printed many years after Gutenberg, he says, when population growth was surging again. I think Cohn misses the point: the INVENTION of the Gutenberg printing press was made possible by the Black Death, which made labor costs sky high by killing off many scribes. That many more books were printed with a fast-increasing population is not surprising: the demand for books increased with headcount. But Herlihy argues that without the Black Death, Gutenberg might not have had to invent his printing press. Herlihy's other examples include firearms.

Cohn points out that gunpowder and cannons were already known before Black Death. True enough. But he cannot convincingly prove that the Black Death didn't create a need for the widespread use of firearms in war. Cohn raises many other questions. A tough one is: why didn't the Middle East experience a cultural resurgence after the Black Death, which struck Europe just as hard? Herlihy has no answer to this. Cohn also fails the mention the puzzling case of China. The 14th century was hard on China also - many millions died from epidemics almost identical with the Black Death. But China started falling behind Europe soon afterwards. Why did Europe and not China benefit from the Black Death? (My guess is China suffered less human loss than Europe did, and as a result could not free up more resources to break what Herlihy calls the Malthusian deadlock - the constant growth in population which swallowed up all the benefits of innovation with no real improvement in standards of living and the possibility for revolutionary innovations.) Also, China had printing with movable type long before Europe did, and this didn't help China much later on.

I think there are many other issues and questions to consider how and why Europe advanced so much more quickly after the Black Death than before it. Surely the Mongol Empire which crumbled around the same time as the Black Death happened had by then transmitted much of China's technology (such as gunpowder and paper) to Europe, which needed time to digest and disseminate. So the possibility is real that it was the dreaded Mongols who made Europe what it is today, not only by making Chinese technology possible, but also by creating the conditions for the Black Death epidemic itself through its intercontinental trade routes. The Black Death may have started from central Asia in Turkestan - in today's southeastern part of Kazakstan, not far from the Chinese border. (p. 22-23) As Herlihy puts it, a certain Mongol khan used dead bodies with the plague to besiege a Black Sea town - one of the first effective uses of biological weapons. Thanks thus to the Mongols, Europe suffered the Black Death only to benefit from it enormously in the long run. I only wish this book were not so short, so that Herlihy could have been more specific as to why he thought so. Still this is the only effort I know of which makes this suggestion.

Death and Transformation...Almost!.......2004-02-23

This is a rather slight work of only 116 pages including Professor Cohn's thoughtful comments. Thus, those wishing to read a sound introduction to this period of 1348-1350 a.d. need not feel daunted in seeking it out.

Most interesting is Professor Cohn's suggestion that the political impact of the plague in the Mediterranean was not at all like that "in the West." He notes "...Mamluk (slaves who rose to power in Egypt) political control was unshaken by the plague experience." This surprises and informs. Thus the Introduction is a very good reason for having this book.

Cohn also credits Herlihy with ingeniously adding to historians' discussions of epidemics by addressing the implications for creating saints by the church. Even more interesting is the "naming" discussion in the third of the three essays by Herlihy, "Modes of Thoughts and Feelings". It is in this section that he probes the choices of names for children relative to the horrific emotions stirred by the plague. In traditional study of religion, the analysis of "theophoric" elements in names is extremely useful as scholars of Near Eastern religions have often noted.

He notes as well that some very base passions were stirred to the extent that wild frolicking occurred even among the graves in cemeteries.

However, those escorting the many to their final resting places
did not often exercise their right to remove valuables from the pockets of the deceased. Understanding of the risks entailed must have become clear. Grave diggers traditionally had appropriated a few coins used for the deads' fare into the next world..."to pay the tillerman." This understanding may have developed slowly, but it did develop.

Herlihy restricted his analysis primarily to "demographic and economic" systems even though the reader will sense that much more could have been written as regards other religious influences and practices (burials just noted) specifically, the authority of the Catholic church. After all it was the wealthiest institution in the world. Some students, of this awesome series of events assert the "the Black Death" so changed religious perceptions as to lay some of the foundation for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This is really intriguing!

Just how could the plague have occasioned such long lasting effects. Surely something as significant as "...the Transformation of the West" would fully grapple with these dimensions. However, students of this matter will have to look elsewhere.The editors may have over reached in appending "Transformation of the West" to the title.

Alas Dr. Herlihy died in 1991... with all of us...amateurs and scholars alike...losing his further creative and brilliant insights into this great period in the history of human family. We do thank Dr. Cohn for his contribution and may Professor Herlihy rest in peace.

psb 2-22-20040

interesting but brief.......2001-01-11

I bought this book because I was intrigued by the notion that Herlihy believed the Black Death was a blessing in disguise e.g. an ushering of the Technological Age, strengthened belief in Christianity, reshaping of society.

These theories proved interesting. I was also very impressed with the first chapter, which describes the plague medically, relates it to recent outbreaks of a similar nature and does a good job of theorizing how and why the plague ravaged Europe. I was interested to learn that the disease itself only killed a small percentage of people; in later years labor shortages, diminishing returns and lower birth rates helped to devistate the population more than the plagues actually did.

However, the book is too short. It is merely an introduction to this vast topic. I have read other books that briefly mention the plague but do their best to describe alternate theories on the disease, relating the sickness to the foods consumed at the times, the living conditions and essentially doing a lot more to understand what the plague actually was. Unfortunately Herlihy only dabbles in this and leaves me wanting more informaiton, instead of feeling satisfied with my knowledge of this topic. Perhaps because this is a general look at all of Europe and the plague. Perhaps if he had written about The Black Death in England or The Black Death in Italy he would have afforded a greater breadth of detail.

I recommend this book as a suppliment to the study of the plague; do not expect to become an expert by these 81 pages alone.

Excellent expository essay in three parts.......2000-08-12

This book is not a broad survey or a complete history. It is quite short and assumes a good bit of knowledge of the plague and of general European history.

He addresses three issues. First, he points out that historians really can't be sure of the composition of the plague itself. Was it actually all just bubonic plague, or some combination of various other diseases? Second, what were the economic effects of the plague? Did the relative scarcitity of labor following the plague break Europe out of a 'Malthusian deadlock' into a growing economy? Finally, what was the effect of the plague on the social order? Did it help to Christianize Europe?

Book Description

Since publication of the initial version of Plagues and Poxes in 1987, which had the optimistic subtitle "The Rise and Fall of Epidemic Disease," the rise of new diseases such as AIDS and the deliberate modification and weaponization of diseases such as anthrax have changed the way we perceive infectious disease. With major modifications to deal with this new reality, the acclaimed author of Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs has updated and revised this series of essays about changing disease patterns in history and some of the key events and people involved in them. It deals with the history of major outbreaks of disease — both infectious diseases such as plague and smallpox and noninfectious diseases — and shows how they are in many cases caused inadvertently by human actions, including warfare, commercial travel, social adaptations, and dietary modifications. To these must now be added discussion of the intentional spreading of disease by acts of bioterrorism, and the history and knowledge of those diseases that are thought to be potential candidates for intentional spread by bioterrorists.

Customer Reviews:

Ok, but a little thin.......2005-12-30

I am using this book in a class I am currently teaching. It's fine, gives a decent rundown on the major plagues and includes non-infectious plagues which adds another dimention to the text. Still, it is a tad brief for anything much other than an overview.

Dry Prose with Poor Additions.......2004-12-19

The "M.D." stands prominently after the author's name on the cover of this book and that's probably for a good reason: this text would fit better in the pages of a medical journal then as a book for public consumption. As a reader with a science background (albeit in physics) I am always ready to read a new science book. I also have an interest in the study of disease, particularly as it relates to the historical development of the human race. Still, this book was a disappointment.

Consider the following passage from the chapter on anthrax: "Most naturally occurring anthrax strains are sensitive to penicillin, which historically has been the preferred anthrax therapy. Doxycycline is the preferred option among the tetracycline class of agents, because it has been proved efficacious in monkey studies. Other members of this class of antibiotics are suitable, and animal studies suggest that such prophylaxis should be effective. The floroquinolone antibiotics (such as ciprofloxacin [Cipro®])should have equivalent efficacy, but no data are available..." Not only is this dull prose, it is unimportant to the thread of the story that Dr. Bollett claims he is telling. And this is only one of the most prominent examples of poor prose (besides making me wonder whether or not Dr. Bollett has any financial interest in Cipro).

According to the introduction, this book is a revised edition to an earlier book on the same subject. I didn't read the first edition but I have a feeling it is much better than this book. Mainly because the last three chapters on emerging diseases are the poorest in the book and are probably new to this addition. As are what I expect are new paragraphs near the end of every chapter that relates how every single disease in history could be weaponized. It is disturbing to see a book like this play on people's fears of bioterrorism.

It's unfortunate because the historical sections of the book which are the bulk of the first parts of each chapter are well done if a bit dry. Dr. Bollett has turned the traditional view around a bit by considering how human history has impacted epidemic disease rather than the other way around. If the book had stayed on this path it would have been decent, if not great. Somehow this new edition has lost its way.

Charts the rise and changing of disease patterns.......2004-11-10

The impact of human history on epidemic disease is related in Dr. Bollett's Plagues And Poxes, an excellent medical-based survey which charts the rise and changing of disease patterns throughout human history. From key events which sparked changes and people involved in them to how inflections diseases have been stopped, Plagues And Poxes provides both a case history and a social analysis, written by a medical doctor who has been a member of many prestigious medical history societies.

The Save Your Life Diet: High-Fiber Protection from Six of the Most Serious Diseases of Civilization

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Save Your Life

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Save Your Life.......2007-06-28

The book's title really says it all and book should still be in print on bookshelves and saving lives.

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Leprosy: not just a bygone disease
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Release Date: 2005-08-25

Book Description

This fascinating cultural and medical history of leprosy enriches our understanding of a still-feared biblical disease.

It is a condition shrouded for centuries in mystery, legend, and religious fanaticism. Societies the world over have vilified its sufferers: by the sheer accident of mycobacterial infection, they have been condemned to exile and imprisonment—illness itself considered evidence of moral taint.

Over the last 200 years, the story of leprosy has witnessed dramatic reversals in terms of both scientific theory and public opinion. In A DISEASE APART, Tony Gould traces the history of this compelling period through the lives of individual men and women: intrepid doctors, researchers, and missionaries, and a vast spectrum of patients.

We meet such pioneers of treatment as the Norwegian microbe hunter, Armauer Hansen. Though Hansen discovered the leprosy bacillus in l873, the 'heredity vs. contagion' debate raged on for decades. Meanwhile, across the world, Belgian Catholic missionary Father Damien became an international celebrity tending to his stricken flock at the Hawaiian settlement of Molokai. He contracted the disease himself. To the British, leprosy posed an "imperial danger" to their sprawling colonial system. In the l920s Sir Leonard Rogers of the Indian Medical Service found that the ancient Hindu treatment of chaulmoogra oil could be used in an injectable form.

The Cajun bayou saw the inspiring rise of leprosy’s most zealous campaigner of all: a patient. At Carville, Louisiana, a Jewish Texan pharmacist named Stanley Stein was transformed by leprosy into an eloquent editor and writer. He ultimately became a thorn in the side of the U.S. Public Heath Department and a close friend of Tallulah Bankhead.

The personalities met on this journey are remarkable and their stories unfold against the backgrounds of Norway, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, South Africa, Canada, Nigeria, Nepal and Louisiana. Although since the l950s drugs treatments have been able to cure cases caught early—and arrest advanced cases—leprosy remains a subject mired in ignorance.

In this superb and enlightened book, Tony Gould throws light into the shadows.

Customer Reviews:

Leprosy: not just a bygone disease.......2006-04-22

Hear the world 'leprosy' and you tend to think of bygone eras and diseases no longer threatening modern societies - but A DISEASE APART: LEPROSY IN THE MODERN WORLD shows otherwise, tracing the history of leprosy and surveying the legends, realities, and medical concerns surrounding the disease. From pioneers of early treatments and diagnosis to local epidemics of leprosy, chapters survey the controversies, research, and health risks which have surrounded leprosy. Treatments for cases caught early have been in effect since the 1950s - but there's still lots of misunderstanding and myth surrounding leprosy - and thus the need for this detailed medical history.

A Special Disease.......2005-09-12

Everyone knows what you mean if you refer to someone as a leper: someone others shun. There are worse diseases, more painful ones, more numerous ones, and many more contagious ones, but leprosy was a horror of its own. This was largely because leprosy was visible; blotchy skin, bloated face, extremities dissolving away. Lepers had more problems in that they lost their sight, but more particularly they lost their sense of touch, and with it the capacity to feel pain, the blessing in disguise that protects us from the world's blows. It is a terrible disease, but the horror it inspired in others made it unique. In _A Disease Apart: Leprosy in the Modern World_ (St. Martin's Press), Tony Gould shows that in the past couple of hundred years, the disease has lost its capacity to shock. It still exists, but there are good treatments and we know that sufferers need not be objects of fear or horror, and that they are certainly not victims of some sort of curse from gods of any type. Gould has not pointedly drawn comparisons to AIDS in our own time, but the similar arc of social reaction to the disease is clear.

Much of what people know about leprosy comes from the Bible, and it certainly inspired the missionaries in their efforts against the disease, but probably those missionaries were fighting a different one than that known in Old Testament times and locales. The involvement of Christianity by means of missionaries to sufferers is a theme throughout this book. One victim himself wrote, "There is no mission to the tubercular, no mission to the diabetics, no mission to syphilitics.... there seems to be some special reward for working with 'lepers'." Such missions are not now fashionable, and we know missionaries are not an unalloyed force for good. Gould has focused in on one region after another to tell histories that all include the cruel management of sufferers and the eventual freeing of them to more enlightened ways. Perhaps the most famous is Father Damien, the Belgian priest who ministered to lepers in Hawaii from 1873 to his death from leprosy in 1889. An American Protestant missionary met him there, and wrote a private posthumous letter critical of Father Damien ("He was not a pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of which he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness.") which the recipient published. Damien's cause was taken up by another previous visitor to Molokai, none other than Robert Louis Stevenson. The controversy only swelled interest in the colony and made Damien a martyr and a figurehead for fundraising.

Leper colonies were not only in far away, impoverished places full of people with dark skin. The American version was in a lovely place, if a little swampy, called Carville, Louisiana. Huge oaks, songbirds, and gorgeous flowering trees made it a place of inspiring natural beauty. "It should have been a tonic to the soul. Except that we were fenced in." So wrote Stanley Stein, a Jewish pharmacist from Texas who edited the patients' publication _The Star_. He was the bane of the U.S. Public Health Service, always campaigning in a spirited American fashion for more rights. The campaign worked, as gradually patients were allowed more time on the outside, and the fences that had held them were taken down. Stein became a star himself, touring the country and hobnobbing with the likes of Tallulah Bankhead. He died in 1967, but Carville still exists as does his paper. The facility was formally closed as a leprosarium in 1999, but some with the disease still live there; having been isolated all their lives, they fear trying to live in the outside world, although they could do so with which much less stigma due to Stein's campaign. Gould shows that this has been the pattern in one locale after another as scientific evaluation of leprosy as a disease has shown that it isn't anything more than a disease, and not a very dangerous one at that, especially now. There is a contradiction, though, in that sufferers and healers who insist that it is just a disease are taking away its special status. The special status may have been founded on fear, but take it away and the focus on treatment and rehabilitation may be lost, especially in poor countries with other diseases to fight. It is one of the many paradoxes in an engaging and moving book.

Save Your Life Diet, High-Fiber Protection From Six of the Most Serious Diseases of Civilization

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Save Your Life Diet, High-Fiber Protection From Six of the Most Serious Diseases of Civilization

Manufacturer: NY: Random House, 1975
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Save Your Life Diet

ASIN: B000GLYQGW

The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea: Three Stories in the Making of a Modern Genetic Disease

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The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea: Three Stories in the Making of a Modern Genetic Disease
Alice Wexler
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Early Civilization | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books

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General | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0300105029

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Very interesting and inspiring
it's too bad nobody reads this
controversial but correct
ten stars and a true story
truly an inspired work

Nutrition and physical degeneration
Weston A Price
Manufacturer: P.B. Hoeber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Nutrition | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Civilization & Culture | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Very interesting and inspiring.......2007-07-25

Sally Fallon gives a talk on Weston Andrew Price. I listened to the audio talk regarding this work. Some thought provoking stuff here. Some other readers have given a far more in-depth discussion on the book and I would like to conclude that this is a must read.

it's too bad nobody reads this.......2007-06-28

While it doesn't spell out everything you need to know about nutrition, this book provides some of the raw ethnographic data you need so you can begin to open your eyes. The section on the Inuit was particularly enlightening.

controversial but correct.......2007-05-13

this book is based on common sense nutrition because primitives have no nutritionists to tell them what to eat only eons of ancestral wisdom yet retain health sometimes under amazing circumstances the only drawback i found was that weston price being a dentist tends to write this book as a dentist giving many measurements of cavities which to the average person interested in nutrition or anthropology might find repetitive and strange none the less this man deserves tremendous credit for his contribution to dentistry and natural diets of mankind alltogether a fascinating read

ten stars and a true story.......2007-05-08

Our daughter had Juvenile Dermatomyocitis, a very rare auto immune disease for which modern medicince can give neither the cause nor the cure. Some children get over it in 2- 4 years, for some it is fatal, and for some it becomes a lifelong ailment. It affects the skin with a chronic rash, the joints with rheumatoid arthritis, and the muscles (incldung the heart) with degeneration. It is horrible and it left our little girl confined to the sofa and incapable of even stepping over an electric cord.

Within one year after the diagnosis (confirmed with blood work), she was once again a perfectly normal and healthy child. The difference? The research of Dr. Weston A. Price in this incredible book. Read how Sallon Fallon puts this Dr.'s research into practice with her cookbook Nourishing Traditions, and I bet I'll see you at the next Nourishing Traditions conference in Chantilly. (By the way, I never could convince two of the Doctors who treated her that nutrition affected illness....Whatever)

The saddest thing for me is to see many of the characteristics that Dr. Price shows in his book as the result of malnutirition and degeneration in the faces of many people in public. Once you see the photos in this book, you will recognize the facial traits everywhere, shopping malls, stores, etc... You will never look at the human physique in the same way again.

truly an inspired work.......2007-03-25

A fabulous book about what truly makes our physical bodies immune to disease and decay. Dr. Weston Price was inspired in his desire to seek for truth in what really makes our bodies strong and healthy, and what destroys the beauty and structure and capability of our hearts, minds and bodies. Detailed diets and lifestyles of the world's strongest and most beautiful traditional people. It breaks your heart to see the decay of our modern day and makes you long for a world that has true peace and strength.

Secret Judgements of God: Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America (The Civilization of the American Indian Series)

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Secret Judgements of God: Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America (The Civilization of the American Indian Series)

Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 14921650 (New Approaches to the Americas)

ASIN: 0806133775

Book Description

A collection of case studies by historians, geographers, and anthropologists, Secret Judgements of God discusses how diseases with Old World origins devastated vulnerable native populations throughout Spanish America. In their preface to the paperback edition, the editors discuss the ongoing, often heated debate about contact population history.

Civilizing Argentina: Science, Medicine, and the Modern State

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Civilizing Argentina: Science, Medicine, and the Modern State
Julia Rodriguez
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

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Cold War, Deadly Fevers: Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 1955--1975 (Woodrow Wilson Center Press)
"The Hour of Eugenics": Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America

ASIN: 080785669X
Release Date: 2006-02-08

Book Description

After a promising start as a prosperous and liberal democratic nation at the end of the nineteenth century, Argentina descended into instability and crisis. This stark reversal, in a country rich in natural resources and seemingly bursting with progress and energy, has puzzled many historians. In Civilizing Argentina, Julia Rodriguez takes a sharply contrary view, demonstrating that Argentina's turn of fortune is not a mystery but rather the ironic consequence of schemes to "civilize" the nation in the name of progressivism, health, science, and public order.

With new medical and scientific information arriving from Europe at the turn of the century, a powerful alliance developed among medical, scientific, and state authorities in Argentina. These elite forces promulgated a political culture based on a medical model that defined social problems such as poverty, vagrancy, crime, and street violence as illnesses to be treated through programs of social hygiene. They instituted programs to fingerprint immigrants, measure the bodies of prisoners, place wives who disobeyed their husbands in "houses of deposit," and exclude or expel people deemed socially undesirable, including groups such as labor organizers and prostitutes. Such policies, Rodriguez argues, led to the destruction of the nation's liberal ideals and opened the way to the antidemocratic, authoritarian governments that came later in the twentieth century.

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