Plagues and Peoples
by William H. McNeill
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Book Summary Information
Author: William H. McNeillEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1976
ISBN: 0385121229
Number of pages: 340
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Plagues and Peoples
Book Review: A Great Exercise for the Mind in the Way of Ebb and Flow Thinking!
Summary: 4 Stars
I am starting to believe I have a soft spot for environmental history due to my strong fondness of this book. Yes the book is much about epidemiology, but the focus is also very much on how certain diseases were possible within certain environments - how they got there, how they survived there, and how those environments were affected in the way of future outbreaks, food cultivation, population growth/reduction, etc.
You will not get a lot of unknown facts about diseases from this book as the majority of the time periods addressed were prior to formal record keeping and disease identification. However, you will get a great exercise of the mind in the way of a priori thinking and cause and effect relationships. McNeil does a great job in showing us how the evidence that is available - evidence from sources such as religious writings, population records, and recent day archeological finds - can be constructed to shed light on when certain pandemics/epidemics broke out, what they more than likely were, how the specific viruses affected populations, how the human body reacted to the viruses over time, and how those viruses in return reacted to the human body.
Although this book's main subject is epidemiology, it is very similar (although a precursor) to books like Guns, Germs and Steel in that it addresses various macroparisitic and microparisitic effects on the growth of civilizatoins. However, its focus on diseases makes it particularly interesting and provides a sort of mental anchor when thinking about the multitude of variables that has shaped our world. Yes, I can appreciate that after reading this book I am now more aware of the major viruses/diseases that affected our history, but more than anything, that ebb and flow thinking of how the big picture comes to be is more concreted in my mind. And this is the book's greatest value to me.
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