The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
John M. Barry
Mar 2006 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Scott Brick
4.5star
24 reviewsreport
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19 hr 27 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, THE GREAT INFLUENZA weaves together multiple narratives, with characters ranging from William Welch, founder of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, to John D. Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson. Ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, this crisis provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.
Ratings and reviews
4.5
24 reviews
Oliver Madjora
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May 2, 2021
A treatise in how not to write a book: the author finds every single rabbit hole en route to his subject and thoroughly gets lost in each of these. He barely touches upon the pandemic until chapter 6 and, when finally getting to the topic, gets lost in a thousand other rabbit holes and loses additional focus on loosely connected factoids. Now at chapter 10 and I give up. Some may be interested to hear how soldiers were told masturbate rather than use prostitutes as a means to reduce VD incidence but I wanted to read about the influenza pandemic - information I'll go seek elsewhere.
Virginia Grigg
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June 13, 2020
A must read. We didn't learn enough from history. More detail than I thought that I needed but now I am glad all was included.
10 people found this review helpful
H. imamura
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September 24, 2021
informative. it focused in the dynamics of scientists since the influenza was not really understood.
About the author
John M. Barry is the author of the New York Times bestselling The Great Influenza and the prizewinning history Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. He divides his time between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C.
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