Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was
an immediate critical and popular success, offering 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 the early 1980s,
another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which
William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated
editon.
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, offering a new perspective on
human history.