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“Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us.” — Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history—even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern.
The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics can’t convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning, where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence.
In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people—one third of the known population—before it vanished.
1347 marked a watershed in the history of the Middle Ages. An intruder crept across Europe and Asia, striking with little warning and killing a full third of the population. No one was spared — children, the elderly, and those in the prime of life were struck down with equal ferocity by the illness known as the Black Plague.
John Kelly chronicles the origins and development of this devastating epidemic, from its origins in Central Asia to its spread eastward to China and westward to Europe, eventually spreading as far as Portugal and Scandinavia. Drawing on contemporary letters and chronicles, Kelly brings to life the world of the Plague — a world filled with fear, violence, bravery, greed and unselfish charity. He also presents evidence that the illness that so devastated two continents was not bubonic or pneumonic plague at all, but something entirely different. The Great Mortality is a gripping and unforgettable look back at a time when many thought they were witnessing the end of the world. John Kelly, who holds a graduate degree in European history, is the author and coauthor of ten books on science, medicine, and human behavior, including Three on the Edge, which Publishers Weekly called the work of “an expert storyteller.” He lives in New York City.You may also like
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