Armies of Pestilence (Hardcover)

Disease has had a marked effect on history in various ways. Only in recent years have historians begun to study the subject, and this book offers both a contribution to this area of research and an evaluation of other literature on the impact of pandemics on human history. Written for the general reader, it explains for non-specialists the necessary biomedical science and the history. The span of the book stretches from biblical accounts of epidemics and ancient Greece and Rome to the great influenza epidemic of 1919 and modern disease-control methods. Three chapters are devoted to the plague, and malaria, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus and cholera also feature. The book argues that historians must take illnesses into account in future social and historical studies.