I found this book really informative. As a historian, Douglas Boys caters well to those of us who have an interest in epidemiology but lack a medical degree.

While I did enjoy this book, I found that the sudden shifts in time or topic were confusing. Additionally, the book read a little alarmist, and occasionally, the tone was too conversational for the topic. Making light of SARS-CoV2 while discussing how plague quarantine was carried out is an example. I appreciate that, as we have all recently experienced a pandemic, it is easy to compare the past to it but, as a historian, I expected a more detached view.

All in all, a good starter book for budding epidemiology readers but not something I'd recommend to anyone still nervous following the most recent pandemic.

I found the content of this book well researched and fascinating but I really struggled with the chaotic way of writing.

The first couple of chapters covered 5000 years of pandemics from all over the world, which is a tall order by itself but I found it difficult to follow as it jumped from 6th century to 14th century back to 8th and then to 19th all within a single page. I also noticed that this way of writing led to a few paragraphs repeated word for word in different areas throughout the book.

The author clearly knew his stuff and the coverage of the Black Death in 17th century London was well written and followed a more traditional chronological format which made understanding the journey of the disease easier to follow. I wish this had been the format throughout.

There was also a list of diseases which could be pandemic at some point at the back of the book, which was interesting, and I felt deserved a more thorough coverage elsewhere in the book considering how many people have died of these diseases already (e.g. AIDS, Dengue, Ebola).

I would say that the topic is probably well covered and could be a comprehensive guide - but this style of writing doesn't make this clear.

As we navigate the craziness of Covid, it is nice to know that we are not alone in history. There have been numerous plagues and pandemics throughout, and here, the author breaks them down nicely.
If you are looking for something that gives a little more information on these pestilences, give those who are not familiar with an introduction to sicknesses through history.

Interesting and engaging - I enjoyed this book.

*I received an eARC from the publisher Pen & Sword History via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

For many people, the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19 has been a stark reminder of the power of infectious disease. Workplaces shuttered by lockdown measures, faces covered with medical-grade masks, social media saturated with infection statistics and political controversies. In a few months, the current COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world. It has shown how the biggest threat to our modern way of life may, in fact, be microscopic.

More than six million lives taken by the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 as of April 2022.

Douglas Boyd, being a historian and not a medical professional, did a good job in setting the scene to the casual reader by explaining the medical terminology that the reader is going to come across in the book, and he placed most of these terms in the glossary upfront—which was very thoughtful of him.

Infectious diseases have always been part of life; however, the world is more vulnerable to a global pandemic than ever before. Our growing human and animal populations, interconnected global economy, and ability to synthesize new microbes all make the emergence and spread of novel fatal diseases a real possibility.

The book gives a grounded, yet gripping analysis of how deadly infections can spread and disrupt our social order. You’ll learn the science behind these diseases as well as some frightening forecasts about possible outbreaks to come.

Although the book covers a lot of the well-known plagues and pandemics that struck civilizations of old and those new, it was skewed towards Europe-centric ones, which is understandable but noteworthy. The mini stories scattered in the book, from people witnessing these plagues and pandemics, were a nice touch and added a bit of intrigue to the otherwise factful dreary book.

Having said that, and as a life science professional and a firm believer in the power of stories, I had to knock this book down to a 3-star rating. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the book, and it is stack-full of facts and historical titbits that were informative and alarming, but the chronological flow, the anecdotal flow, was lacking, and the sprinkled first-hand accounts didn’t help overcome this feeling of disconnection from the flow.

Boyd had a lot to add, and one can tell from the way he had those interrupting sentences from different timelines disseminating the paragraphs. He did an amazing job researching all the different sections of the book, but I believe the book was rushed, it needed more polishing and a coherent narrative of the overarching ideas. This rush may have been caused by external causes, for the publishing of the book coincided with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic—I’m not pointing fingers.

My recommendation:

If you’re one who’ve read about plagues and pandemics before and have a good grasp of the history and science behind them, I don’t recommend this book for you. For if you want a refresher of the things you know, a quick internet search will give you a better and faster answer.

On the other hand, if you’re a casual reader interested in the history of pandemics, then this book is a good starting point for you—that is, if you don’t mind the choppy “story”-line and are here just for the facts and names.

This book is a well written quick read. It has a lot of information on the plagues from the past in a easy to read way.

We are living in unprecedented times! Or are we? Douglas Boyd's book illustrates that the current pandemic is just one in a series of many over the last few thousand years, and takes the reader on a thoroughly fascinating and very readable account of the many plagues and pandemics that have occurred worldwide from ancient times to the present day.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This book is both intriguing and disgusting. I became fascinated with the telling of the pandemic and plagues through out history. You can read about plagues and pandemics from the black plague to current day COVID crisis. I thought this book was very well written, covering some of our darkest history.

A quick, informative guide to plagues and pandemics throughout history. I found this well organized with just enough information to give you the details but not too much to bog readers down with overly complicated explanations. It's a good starting off point for those who want to learn more about the different plagues with first-hand accounts sprinkled in for good measure. Lots and lots of facts and a great list of books for future reading.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Am I a glutton for punishment reading this book as we careen into our third winter of COVID? Maybe a little but I find dealing with the current situation is often improved by understanding the history of such things. And this book does a bang up job taking the reader through pandemics and plagues from the earliest stages of mankind right up to the present. COVID is not unique. It is not the last pandemic either. As the book points out there are microbes hidden away that we have yet to discover that could bring about something far worse. But instead of filling me with dread, it helps to realize we have passed this way before and we shall pass this way again.

It proves that while mankind has made remarkable strides in curing and preventing diseases, Nature will find a way. Often the sources of these pandemics are repeated again and again. Frequently it is our interaction with animals that begins the process as the cycle repeats. We have found wonderful ways to prevent certain things but even as we do this, we create additional problems. Plagues have been a means by which nature has accomplished population control. Many of these pandemics begin in places where there are just too many people to be sustained by the environment. It is a thought provoking concept that deserves far greater consideration and debate than this review.

We as a species seem to have learned so much but often have convenient amnesia when something like COVID strikes. We have vested interests who tell the narrative to suit their purposes and it leads to many people questioning the veracity. That leads to people not following the tried and true means to curb the spread. And so the cycle continues. Will this be the one that teaches us “the lesson” so we do not repeat our mistakes. Neither the author nor I think so and yet, the reader still comes away with some hope.

We will get through this. But whatever reality transpires at the end, it will be different from where we began. At least, we can hope so. Five purrs and two paws up.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY FOR AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

A TOPICAL SUBJECT. WELL-WRITTEN FULL OF FACTS AND STATISTICS. A MOST INTERESTING READ.

This was an informative and interesting read. It’s a great starting point for those new to Pandemics and diseases through time. It is well written, thorough and stacked with facts. You’ll definitely enjoy it as much as I did.

This was well researched and had great information but it needs some reworking because the book does not flow in chronological order as it tells us it will. And we don't need to talk about the uk lockdown a million times trust me I've been living in it for 2 years ...we are aware ! But seriously if a good beta team got ahold of this book it would be so good and could even be set up like a podcast or serial

This book is a fascinating look and plagues, pandemics, epidemics and illness throughout history. For me this book set Covid in the context of recent and not so recent health history, with a very useful glossary of terms too!

Full of information and thoroughly researched, this makes chilling reading. However, I found a lot of it a bit dry and dense, but Douglas Boyd comes into his own in his section on the Great Plague. This is quite vivid and exciting, with extracts from Samuel Pepys and Daniel Defoe. It made me want to read more about this harrowing time.

He also has a very interesting section about the present coronavirus wreaking havoc everywhere.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

EDITION Hardcover

ISBN 9781399005180

PRICE £20.00 (GBP)

And you thought that the first wave of the novel Corona virus was bad! This author digs through the detritus of wars and history to bring light onto many other death bringers and also to show some perspectives on some things Western civilizations thought they knew. Like the fact that the people of India and elsewhere were inoculating against smallpox long before Jenner (or George Washington). The rapid contagion as well as the VERY short course of some other devastating illnesses was a real eye opener to this retired nurse who remembers polio and Rheumatic Fever (don't even talk to me about MRSA!). While the writing is as dry a a PhD thesis, I think that it has to be so, or the reader would drown in the incredible death toll percentages. Fascinating!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Pen & Sword History via NetGalley. Thank you!

I think this book was incredibly well researched, but I'm not sure the writing style worked for me. It felt very choppy and took at least 30% of the book to get used to. I think I struggled because the chapters were meant to progress through time, but then within each chapter the author skipped around through eras too.

The book opens with a glossary of some terms related to diseases rather than putting it in the back, which I thought was quite nice. Then it proceeds more or less chronologically through plagues and pandemics in world history, though there was a rather large emphasis on plague and the UK/Europe, specifically, which sort of makes sense because for most Western readers the 14th century Black Death might be their only point of reference for the topic.

I liked that the book focused on the impact of the pandemics on societies and loved the firsthand accounts taken from people experiencing them. I would have liked a bit more analysis though, rather than just a list of facts, but I get that with a wide overview of history that would be challenging.

I thought some of the mentions of Covid-19 throughout were quite jarring. For example, the author would be talking about public response to a pandemic and then throw in one sentence saying "this mirrors what happened in the UK in 2020" before going back to the discussion of whatever era he was currently on. I think I would have preferred either expanding on how it mirrors our current times or a complete removal of that mention.

Overall, I think this was a very informative book for people who want a jumping off point to start learning about the history of pandemics. Personally I found a lot of the facts being things I already knew from other reading and also my love of "This Podcast Will Kill You", so I would say if you have previous knowledge on the topic, the most appealing part of this book (other than as a refresher) would be the Further Reading at the end.

I received a copy from NetGalley for reviews; thanks. This is my freely given opinion.

I have a bit of a nerd on for medical history, in light of being a nurse, and living through a historically significant medical event at present. In general I enjoyed this book, especially in light of what is currently occurring with COVID-19. It is history and fact based, so it can be a bit of dry reading, but still interesting. I enjoyed that it touched on several different eras of history, throughout the world, but ultimately it did focus on the Western world, and brought things forward to the modern era, including Ebola, various flus, SARS, and COVID-19. It combines cultural aspects such as translations of written history, or stories/songs of the time that reflected the history, biographical tidbits of various individuals or communities and how they dealt with illness. It is social history, politics, epidemiology, medical history, etc. So it was something I personally found very interesting, generally well written with a good balance, though a bit dry at times. Personally, I think it would have benefited with some graphics, especially as there is so much in terms of graphic arts that also reference medicine and plague in history.

I also enjoyed the fleshing out of the history of vaccinations and learned a few new things from that as well. It is also interesting how history does repeat itself (or maybe humans just are doomed not to learn from the past?)

Oddly enough, the brief passages about SARS evoked a bit of an emotional response in me. I am from Toronto and was a young nurse during SARS, and the unit I worked on was converted to the SARS unit for my hospital. It spoke of a couple of circumstances that I was personally involved with and those memories were rather triggering. Especially in light of the current pandemic, and the fact that I am also (still) a nurse, who was redeployed to support our ICU during the third wave, and I am now working there permanently. I am very aware that I have PTSD from a variety of experiences, including how stressful both SARS and the current situation are, and having an emotional response reading about it just brought it home for me.

A solid 3 out of 5 stars for me. A good mental refresher, with interesting history, at times dry, but not overwhelmingly so, and relates history well, with modern circumstances.

On the day that the government in the United Kingdom made mask wearing compulsory in shops and public transport because of the threat of a new variant of Coronavirus, this book about pandemics is released. Brilliant timing. In these horrible times of Covid-19 there are often reminders that this pandemic isn't the worst pandemic man has faced. The Spanish 'flu of 1918-1920 killed around 100 million people, for example, and many other civilisations were wiped out completely by disease.

The non-fiction book opens with a glossary to the medical terms and classification of diseases, which of course is very useful. The plagues and pandemics in the chapters follow a chronological pattern starting with those we know about from ancient times to the Covid-19 pandemic and other potential devastating diseases that exist. The text is laid out in a clear structure.

Douglas Boyd is an historian, not a medical expert, and this makes his book easy to follow for the layman, with all medical terms explained either at the time or in the glossary. All the famous pandemics and diseases are there: the Black Death, the Great Plague, cholera, HIV, typhoid and influenzas. The understanding of how disease worked is discussed, with the ideas ranging from the wrath of God to the misalignment of stars and well as the modern day discoveries of how DNA and pathogens work.

The scariest part of this book is how we already know that there are microorganisms ready to start the next pandemic. Essential reading for those interested in the history of health or why pandemics exist.

As we are living during a pandemic it's interesting to learn about what happened in the past.
This book is well researched and answered to some of my questions and made me learn something new.
Informative, well researched and compelling.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A LOT of pandemics! From civilizations and comparisons throughout the ages to Covid-19.. Quite a bit of minutae and gets off topic and pedantic in some places, but an interesting read. If you want to know more about where we are today with viral infection and pandemic, this is a good place to start.