Plagues and Peoples
by William Hardy McNeill · first published 1976
7mentions
3recommended by
7HN commenters
2010–2023first – last mentioned
43% recommend57% neutral
Covers the historical impact of bubonic plague (including the Black Death), cholera, malaria, smallpox, and other diseases.
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Another really good book is William McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples". It discusses worldwide effects of diseases on populations, not just the Americas, and is very readable. He also points out that in populations with heavy disease loads, most are exposed as children…
on “Avatar: The Holocaust We Will Not See” ↗I always found McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples" a much better read than Diamond's book on semi-overlapping topics.
on “Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics” ↗…responsibilities for animal diseases for a US state. Or, maybe a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I don’t know. But I can, thus, recommend journalistic potboilers such as “Rats, Lice, and Men” and “Plagues and Peoples”. More seriously, David Quammen, given the background he gained in evolutionary biology from writing “Song of the Dodo”, in “Spillover” gives what’s probably the best elucidation of zoonotic pathogens.…
on “Mass hysteria is making coronavirus worse than it is” ↗William McNeill, in Plagues And Peoples [1], makes the point that there are disease gradients that strongly influenced the movement of peoples and the development of culture, and that this gradient in China maps almost precisely to the rice/wheat…
on “‘Rice Theory’ Explains North-South China Cultural Differences, Study Shows” ↗When the time came to read Guns, Germs and Steel, I had bought into Plagues and Peoples (William McNeill) instead -- similar accounts, but more controlled in scope (which made it more trustworthy, imo); as a result, I guess I missed a very convenient confirmation :)
on “How a 6k-Year-Old Dog Cancer Spread Around the World” ↗Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill does cover parish records of births and deaths (mortality tables) in England at that time, so they must have been recording this prior to the big one
on “The Path to Pistoia: Urban Hygiene Before the Black Death (2020)” ↗Thanks for the recommendation! Plagues have definitely had an important impact on the river of history. Is there any particular reason to read Plagues and Peoples instead of Guns, Germs and Steel rather than in addition to?
on “Empathy and Failures of Democracies” ↗