Plagues and Peoples

Plagues and Peoples was first published in 1976. An immediate critical and popular success, it has since then offered a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological and psychological--of disease on cultures. 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, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in 1981, an entirely new chapter in this chronicle of events has been written. In his new introduction to this updated edition, McNeill explores why this pandemic spread globally with such alarming rapidity. Thought-provoking, well-researched and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in early human societies.