History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19 the Spanish Flu

the Spanish Flu

telling their own stories in bold

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review

Knapp draws us into the story of one family

History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19 the Spanish FluA deeply reported, insightful, and literary account of humankind's battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines in the vein of Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body. Epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. With clear eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history,