Plague: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #307

by Paul Slack

This Very Short Introduction explores the historical impact of plague over the centuries, the ways in which it has been interpreted, and the powerful images it has left behind in art and literature. Paul Slack assesses its causes, which have often been disputed and are now being illuminated by microbiologists and archaeologists, and he looks at possible reasons for its periodic disappearance from whole continents. He shows what plague meant for those who suffered from it, and how governments began to fight against it and in doing so invented modern notions of public health. His focus throughout the book is on how people coped with death and disease in epidemic crises.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Medicine, Audiobook, Biology, Medical

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2012

Reviews

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the concluding chapter of this book, author Paul Slack says 'histories of plague have only modest lessons to offer.' He means that studying the three main plague outbreaks in recorded history cannot offer us a definitive prescription for avoiding or dealing with future pandemics, whether or not of plague.

Despite that, this is one of the most wide-ranging VSIs I've read. Although the Americas are absent from this narrative, it offers a global story of human suffering and the many personal, cultural, artistic, medical, religious and governmental responses to a ravening cataclysm. In the process, the book touches upon and lends some perspective to many topics, like the development of public policy, the way tropes originate and are passed on in literature, the consequences of differing cultural beliefs and many more.

This is one of the pleasures of a series of books such as these - I picked up this book expecting a glimpse at a macabre season in human history; instead I was given insights into so much more.

[Well of Lost Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

My reaction to catching a virus: reads 2000+ years of humanity repeatedly getting absolutely wrecked by disease.

Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack is an excellent overview that goes far beyond a simple history of outbreaks. While it covers major plague events around the world, what makes it especially riveting is its focus on human behaviour: how people reacted, how authorities attempted to contain the spread, the regulations imposed, the resistance they faced, and the social consequences that followed.

Even as someone already interested in the macabre side of history, I found plenty of new stories and perspectives here. I was fascinated by the discussion of how different religions interpreted and responded to plague, as well as the comparison between outbreaks in the Near East and Europe, where differing religious and cultural practices appear to have influenced transmission rates significantly.

I particularly appreciated the sections exploring how plague influenced music, literature, and art, with Slack tracing the cultural ripples of catastrophe across centuries and even diving into the themes and reception of notable works.

Turns out the plague wasn't just killing people—it was also generating enough drama to fuel historians, composers, and writers for centuries. ☠️📚🎻

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This mini book briefly covers the historical, cultural, and political impacts of what most of us think of when we hear about "the plague": infections with the bacterium Yersinia pestis. In its three main eras (we are at the tail end of the third, per the author), this bacterium and its strains have wrought incredible population damage and had a reverberating impact on history, even falling into the (ironically used now, in my opinion) common vernacular with phrases like "avoided like the plague".

My biggest takeaway is my amazement at how little humans change. It is easy to write off humans who lived even just 200 years ago as being different creatures entirely, but we are ever the same, repeating cyclically the same dramas and tragedies. Reading about historical people lamenting about strict disease control policies like certificates of health and mandated quarantine while traveling, about the medical community dismissing modalities of transmission despite evidence to the contrary, about the way people coped with mass death - it's a mirror.

However, I don't think that this excuses our behavior in our current pandemic. It's also easy to look at this as absolution - "well", one might say, "humans are just going to be human". But I think the failure to look in the mirror and then make an intentional change is a pretty poor reflection of what people are capable of. We can and do deserve better. We don't have to look at the mass death that has happened in the last four years and say "that was ok". We have more of the means and the knowledge to make change and yet we seem to find ourselves unable to.

I don't know the answer to this, and many philosophers much smarter than I have pondered this questions for ages. I don't think it's naïve, though, to hope and work toward a better future. For everyone.

[Ian Mathers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely an impulse grab at the library; I was picking up some other stuff, and noticed in the relatively small nonfiction section at our branch (not proportionally; the whole branch is pretty small) that they seemed to have a number of these Very Short Introduction books scattered about. I loved loved loved the one on Music, and of the ones they had this one seemed the most interesting, so I picked it up (fully prepared for some variability, given the difference in topics and authors).

As you could imagine from the title, there's a number of ways you might go with this topic, but Slack is writing primarily about not plagues in general but specifically THE black (both black and bubonic, since they're at least related... I mean, he does explain how very clearly but that's what you get when I let these things sit for months before writing a review). The result is almost an ethnography of a disease, tracking the history of it in terms of medicine, culture, context, responses, etc etc etc. It's a good entry into thinking about medical history in general, but the focus was certainly welcome.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent primer on plagues and their impact on society; apart from the obvious factual scientific epidemiological information, the author took the time to make some forays into the cultural repercussions of this phenomenon, including the literary works and art inspired by the pestilences that visited humanity throughout history.

[Ellen F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Posed several mostly unanswerable questions - food for thought. The only disease in scope of this book was the bacteria that cause bubonic plague.

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plague is the prototypical deadly and devastating infectious disease. Over the period of more than a millennium, plague outbreaks have decimated many parts of the world, but perhaps nowhere more so than in Europe. Almost all of the European medieval life has been lived in the shadow of the possible plague outbreaks, but the majority of the main outbreaks have taken place between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It is hard to understate the impact that the plague has had on the course of European history, but also culture and arts.

Despite its impact and prominence in the middle ages, there is still a lot that we don’t know about the plague. Ever since scientists had been able to attribute infectious diseases to microbes, there was a question about which particular microbe was responsible for plague. The general consensus has emerged that the bubonic plague had been caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, but the kinds of disease that this bacteria cause have certain important differences with the medieval plague. The most likely reason for this is that bacteria, like other living organisms, and sometimes evolve rather rapidly.

This short introduction is rather comprehensive for its small format. The first two chapters are dedicated to the biological and epidemiological characteristics of the plague. The rest of the book deals with the cultural and social impact of this disease, in all its ramifications. The book is well written, and it aims at the general audience. Some familiarity with the basic biology and European medieval history are recommended, but they are not essential. It is an interesting and intellectually stimulating little book.

[Zev Mydlarz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the pocket-able size, made for a great subway read. Very intelligent fact filled essay. Great if you like anthropology / sociology.

[Allan Aksiim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty decent overview of the Plague and its different historical instances in ancient Rome, medieval Europe (known to us now as the Black Death) to epidemics in the 19th century in India and China. In the final chapters there is also an overview of fictional plague accounts (Albert Camus book The Plague [of a fictional plague in Oran in 1940], Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year [written nearly 60 years after the events described] and many others).

A small sidenote that stayed with me- the plague in some ways forced Europe to create the modern state that has the power to coerce peoples to defend the non-sick against the sick or contaminated and deal with other crises. Most likely the competitive state system had a way larger impact than those epidemics (more of that in Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity). This was not a topic that the book explored a lot but together with other reading it makes one ponder if the epidemics created by the plague pestilent Yersinia pestis forced European societies to adopt (or stumble upon) social and political measures that were effective against plagues as they were for state formation (for example quarantine from medieval Italy; the absolutist response of the French state to quarantine the city of Marseilles in 1720 and the sanitary cordon in Austria-Hungary between the Europeans and Ottoman lands).

[Jean-Francois Simard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are the five main takeaways from Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack, based on its key themes and insights:

1. Plague's Historical Impact: Plagues, particularly the Black Death (1347–1351), caused massive demographic, social, and economic disruption, killing millions and reshaping societies. Slack emphasizes how these events influenced labor markets, urban development, and cultural attitudes.

2. Evolving Understanding of Disease: The book traces how perceptions of plague shifted from divine punishment to a medical and scientific understanding. Early responses relied on quarantine and superstition, while later discoveries of bacteria (e.g., Yersinia pestis) revolutionized prevention and treatment.

3. Social and Political Responses: Plagues exposed and exacerbated social inequalities, with governments implementing controls like lockdowns and trade restrictions. Slack highlights how these measures often sparked resistance and shaped state authority.

4. Global Reach and Recurrence: Plague was not confined to Europe; it affected Asia, Africa, and the Americas across centuries. Slack discusses its three pandemics (Justinian, Black Death, and modern) and how global trade and mobility spread the disease.

5. Legacy and Modern Relevance: The book underscores plague’s lasting influence on public health systems and its role as a lens for understanding pandemics. Slack connects historical plagues to modern challenges, showing how past lessons inform responses to diseases like COVID-19.

These takeaways encapsulate Slack’s analysis of plague’s multifaceted impact across history.

[Abdul Alhazred · Rating 2 out of 5]

This already short introduction tries to straddle a number of topics from literary criticism to the medical research on historical plagues and the (updated second edition just in time to sell more books) Covid pandemic research angle. It doesn't quite come together, especially since the fundamental answers given surrounding historical plagues is "we don't really know" in most cases.

Great Courses have some worthwhile alternatives; The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research covers what you'd expected this one to, but zoomed in to focus on the plague. After The Plague takes the literary criticism angle. The narrower focus on these two doesn't really end up mattering as they also cover other plagues, of which we know less - much like the VSI book attempted to do.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A good introduction to the history of the plague, exactly what you'd expect. The link between climate change and disease spread was one of the stronger and more compelling arguments here; the focus on European superiority was perhaps the weakest, with outbreaks of the plague in China, India, and other countries mentioned but not given full weight, especially in analysis of cultural and ideological changes that occurred. The pessimism of the last chapter also undercut the purpose of researching and writing about the plague, disappointing when the research and writing was otherwise strong and future uncertainty could have been explored with more nuance.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

While Paul Slack’s Plague did not result in me taking nearly as many notes as I often do with A Very Short Introduction titles, I still found myself engulfed in new ideas. I am fascinated by the three major waves of plague discussed in this book in conversation with the culture shifts the Black Death created and the historical challenges that come with understanding early depictions of plague in comparison to the Bubonic Plague. I do think mileage can vary with this entry though and individuals who have studied these plagues in more detail prior may find less useful information to takeaway from the overall volume.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book I've read in support of my thesis project. While a bit dense and tedious at times, it provides a very informative and wide overview on many aspects one could consider when exploring plague's long and difficult past. A very strong starting point that has prepped me for further readings.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I am less scared of getting the plague in the immediate future but now I'm more angry about climate change so that's fun.

Informative. Read at your own peril.

[?0?0?0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review soon.

[Alkinoos · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better VSIs coming out of Oxford.

[Usfromdk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Closer to one star than three, a bit disappointed with the level of coverage provided here.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent intro to plagues, where they come from, how they spread, their historical impact, their future impact, how they were stopped, how they're unstoppable. Updated for the Covid pandemic.

[Jessica Weida · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were ALOT of dates, so my mind kept wandering off. A decent amount of information to help compare plauges of the past and the Covid pandemic.

[Tevfik Sarsal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sanırım beklentimi yanlış tuttum. Çok ilgimi çeken bir konu ancak kitaba tutunmakta çok zorlandım.

[Stephanie Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

For such a small book with “Intro” to a topic— this was, at times, too deep/too hard to follow.

[Dropspun · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first saw the book "Plague: A Very Short Introduction" by Paul Slack, I was dismayed by its slimness and could only think "They really weren't kidding about the title!" Having read several books on the topic, I didn't think I'd get anything new out of it, but I was wrong.

It's a surprisingly balanced treatise on the subject -- plague, whether bubonic, septicemic or pneumonic. What I liked most about it was some very critical thinking on the subject of what it was, how it affected the people who survived it and how it changed (or didn't change) the societies that survived it; many assumptions or theories in some other books I read were scientifically refuted or questioned here. You can tell this wasn't a slap-dash piece of work, but was deeply researched and I learned several things that I had never encountered before.

I can strongly recommend this as an introduction to plague throughout the ages, from Justinian's plague (the first pandemic), the plague of 1347 (the second pandemic) and the more modern third pandemic afterward.

What I liked best about the book was that often the author pointed out how little we know about the first and second pandemics due to lack of verifiable information -- for instance the we'll never really know how much of the Earth's human population was wiped out in the first and second pandemics or how it spread so quickly compared to the third pandemic in the 1900's. Even tax collectors didn't have a good handle on the pre-existing population due to the fact that often they only counted the people who could be taxed (leaving out women, children and slaves). No one had a good handle on the population after the pandemic ended due to the fact that flight was the only know preventative (and then only if you did it early enough) and you couldn't tell if people didn't come back because they found better land elsewhere or because they had died of plague. Either way, the fewer verifiable facts were chilling enough.

I strongly recommend this as an introduction to the subject. I also recommend you do not read it just before bedtime as the subject can be pretty grim, although the author lightens it up with some pretty humorous stories of the ways various people reacted.

Go. Read. Enjoy!

[Mark Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very confused book

If you are looking for a book on a topic like"The Black Death" or some such turn elsewhere. This book conflates at least three major historical incidence of plague and it can be difficult and confusing to know which one the author is writing about. I don't agree with the author that basically plague is plague, whether it's from the 4th or 5th century BCE or an outbreak in the 6th century CE or 19th century CE China. The book also tries to convey that our ancestors must have greatly inflated death counts and social disruption, all the while using so-called experts to basically say they're guessing just as much as the older, more "imaginative" generations. And wasting time pretending to be a literary critic for low and high brow artworks is space that could have been used to better craft the storyline he's trying to promote.

Three stars for some interesting information on new historical and medical perspectives.

[Amy Durreson]

A good starting point for understanding the plague across history. Clear and interesting, and accessible for a non-expert, although there were some tantalizing references to historical events and figures which were never elucidated. That's part of the nature of these little books, which are my first call when reading up on a new topic, but a few extra sentences would have helped - I kept expecting a little more on quarantine histories and procedures, as the first chapter seemed to be suggesting they would be a later focus, but this never quite happened.

[Taksya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breve trattato scientifico sulla peste.
In poche pagine ci viene descritta la malattia (o le malattie che nel corso dei secoli sono state riconosciute come peste), il contraccolpo che le epidemie hanno avuto sulle popolazioni colpite e le opere di intelletto nate durante gli anni del contagio.
Interessante assaggio che comprende la visione di più campi di esperienza, per meglio capire le cose da punto di vista globale.

[Elentarri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short but interesting and well written book about the 3 major outbreaks of plague - Justinian's Plague, the Black Death and the Plague in China. This is mostly a social/historical account of the plague, with almost no scientific information.

[Boredlaura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would've liked more science, very history focused

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best overview of the issues surrounding the plague that I have found yet.

[Mills College Library]

614.5732 S6311 2012