A vivid, sweeping, and "fact-filled" (Booklist, starred review)
history of mankind's battles with infectious disease that
"contextualizes the COVID-19 pandemic" (Publishers Weekly)--for
readers of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Yuval Harari's Sapiens
and John Barry's The Great Influenza.
For four thousand years, the size and vitality of cities, economies, and
empires were heavily determined by infection. Striking humanity in
waves, the cycle of plagues set the tempo of civilizational growth and
decline, since common response to the threat was exclusion--quarantining
the sick or keeping them out. But the unprecedented hygiene and medical
revolutions of the past two centuries have allowed humanity to free
itself from the hold of epidemic cycles--resulting in an urbanized,
globalized, and unimaginably wealthy world.
However, our development has lately become precarious. Climate and
population fluctuations and factors such as global trade have left us
more vulnerable than ever to newly emerging plagues. Greater global
cooperation toward sustainable health is urgently required--such as the
international efforts to manufacture and distribute a COVID-19
vaccine--with millions of lives and trillions of dollars at stake.
"A timely, lucid look at the role of pandemics in history" (Kirkus
Reviews), The Plague Cycle reveals the relationship between
civilization, globalization, prosperity, and infectious disease over the
past five millennia. It harnesses history, economics, and public health,
and charts humanity's remarkable progress, providing a fascinating and
astute look at the cyclical nature of infectious disease.
