This book covers The Great Plague, also known as The Black Death. Europe was hit with the first wave of this in the 14th century. It was carried via fleas, but it is believed to have also been passed from person to person in pneumonic fashion. It resulted in the deaths of 1/3 of the entire population of Eurasia. The horrific symptoms and millions of deaths that came from this pestilence caused huge upheavals in society at the time. This book did a terrific job detailing that. This is still a thing that has not been eradicated, and there are a few cases every year. I believe that they occur mostly in the West/Southwest portion of the United States, though I am sure other places also have this problem and I am simply unaware of it.


If you are a fan of The Last Podcast On The Left, this book is included on the reading list for that show. I have been slowly working my way through the reading list, or at least the stuff that I deemed interesting and wanted to know more about. This was actually good timing, as I am doing a class on Modern European history, and the Plague is mentioned in that text. I can definitely see why this book was on the reading list, as it is full of information as well as historical context about society at the time of the Plague. I will be keeping this book handy until I finish these courses, because this would be a terrific reference text for a paper or project. If you are studying this era of history, I would suggest grabbing a copy of this.