Flu

In 1918, during the height of World War I, a strain of deadly flu swept across the globe, infecting an estimated one-third of the world's population and killing forty million people within months. In writing her award-winning book, The Flu Epidemic of 1918, science journalist Gina Kolata unpacked the mystery behind the emergence of what came to be known as the Great Influenza Pandemic. Now available in paperback with a new afterword by Kolata, this acclaimed book offers a historical account of the disease that remains fresh today in light of recent news stories about toxic bird flu outbreaks in Asia and fears that avian flu strains could mutate into a major global pandemic.