The history of┬аdisease is the history of humankind: an interpretation of the world as seen through the extraordinary impactтАФpolitical, demographic, ecological, and psychologicalтАФof disease on cultures.
"A book of the first importance, a truly revolutionary work." тАФThe New Yorker
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, Plagues and Peoples is "a┬аbrilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews).┬аUpon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter was added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his introduction to this edition.┬а
Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is essential readingтАФthat rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening.