Plagues and Peoples

by William H. McNeill

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated editon.

Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. "A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading, offering a new perspective on human history.

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

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

William Hardy McNeill was a historian and author, noted for his argument that contact and exchange among civilizations is what drives human history forward, first postulated in The Rise of the West (1963). He was the Robert A. Milikan Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1947 until his retirement in 1987.
In addition to winning the U.S. National Book Award in History and Biography in 1964 for The Rise of the West, McNeill received several other awards and honors. In 1985 he served as president of the American Historical Association.
In 1996, McNeill won the prestigious Erasmus Prize, which the Crown Prince of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander presented to him at Amsterdam's Royal Palace.
In 1999, Modern Library named The Rise of the West of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th century.
In 2009, he won the National Humanities Medal. In February 2010, President Barack Obama, a former University of Chicago professor himself, awarded McNeill the National Humanities Medal to recognize "his exceptional talent as a teacher and scholar at the University of Chicago and as an author of more than 20 books, including The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963), which traces civilizations through 5,000 years of recorded history".

Reviews

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looked at from the point of view of other organisms, humankind therefore resembles an acute epidemic disease, whose occasional lapses into less virulent forms of behavior have never sufficed to permit any really stable, chronic relationship to establish itself.

It is risky to write a book like this. When William H. McNeill set out to analyze the manifold ways that infectious diseases have shaped world history, it was almost an entirely novel venture. Though people had been writing history for millennia, specialized works focusing on the ways that civilizations have been shaped by illness were few and far between. This seems rather strange when you consider that it was only in the twentieth century when disease reliably caused fewer casualties than enemy action during war.

Perhaps thinking about faceless enemies like viruses and bacteria simply does not come naturally to us. We personify the heavens readily enough, and do our best to appease it. But it is more difficult to personify a disease: it strikes too randomly, too mysteriously, and often too suddenly. It is, in other words, a completely amoral agent; and the thought that we are at the mercy of such an agent is painful to consider.

This tendency to leave diseases out of history books has come down to our own day. The 1918 flu pandemic is given a fraction of the coverage in standard textbooks as the First World War, even though the former caused more casualties. Curiously, however, that terrible disease did not even leave a lasting impression on those who survived it, judging by its absence in the works of the major writers of the day. It seems that memory of disease fades fast, at least most of the time. The 1968 Hong Kong flu killed 100,000 Americans that year (which would translate to 160,000 today), and yet neither of my parents remembers it.

This is why I think this book was a risky venture: there was not much precedent for successful books written about the history of diseases. Further, since there was not much in the way of prior research, much of this book must perforce consist of speculation using the spotty records that existed. While this does leave the historian open to the criticism of making unfounded claims, as McNeill himself says, such speculations can usefully precede a more thorough inquiry, since at least it gives researchers an orientation in the form of theories to test. Indeed, in my opinion, speculative works have just as important a role as careful research in the advancement of knowledge.

McNeill most certainly cannot be accused of a lack of ambition. He had completed an enormous amount of research to write his seminal book on world history, The Rise of the West; and this book has an equally catholic orientation. He begins with the emergence of our species and ends with the twentieth century, examining every inhabited continent (though admittedly not in equal detail). The result is a tantalizing view of how the long arc of history has been bent and broken by creatures lighter than a dust mite.

Some obvious patterns emerge. The rise of agriculture and cities created population densities capable of supporting endemic diseases, unknown to hunter-gatherers. Living near large masses of domesticated animals contributed much to our disease regimes; and the lack of such animals was decisive in the New World, leaving indigenous populations vulnerable to the invading Europeans’ microbes. Another recurring pattern is that of equilibrium and disturbance. Whenever a new disease breaks in upon a virgin population, the results are disastrous. But eventually stasis is achieved, and population begins to rebound.

One of McNeill’s most interesting claims is that the great population growth that began in the 18th century was partly a result of a new disease regime. By that time, fast overland and sea travel had exposed most major urban centers to common diseases from around the world, thus rendering them less vulnerable to new shocks. I was also surprised to learn that it was only the rise of modern sanitation and medicine—in the mid 19th century—that allowed city populations to be self-sustaining. Before this, cities were population sinks because of endemic diseases, and required constant replenishment from the countryside in order to maintain their numbers.

As I hope you can see, almost fifty years after publication, this book still puts forward a compelling view of world history. And I think it is a view that we still have trouble digesting, since it challenges our basic sense of self-determination. Perhaps one small benefit of the current crisis will be an increased general curiosity about how we still are, and have always been, mired in the invisible web of the microscopic world.

[Sense of History]

Rating 3.5 stars. What can you do when you want to study a certain aspect of human history, and almost no-one before you has looked into the issue before? What can you do when the sources that could enlighten you on this issue, are lacking, or are only available for a relatively recent time periode? That is the challenge William H. McNeill saw himself up to when he started this study on plagues and peoples, back in the 1970's.

In his introduction he’s very honest about this: “Many of my suggestions and inferences remain tentative ” and throughout this book McNeill stresses that he’s making reasonable guesses because the sources are lacking, and he puts a lot of energy in substantiating the way he has come to his hypotheses through associating lots of different elements, making use of analogies, etc. I like this transparency very much. It’s the only way to present history in an honest way and leaving room for other historians to build upon his work. I’m happy McNeill didn’t give this book the title ‘history of medicine’ or ‘history of plagues and diseases’, because it isn’t.

I’m not saying that according to me McNeill in this study is always right, or that his hypotheses are 100% plausible. Take for instance the rise of religions like Christianity in the late Roman empire or Buddhism in China, in almost the same period. McNeill suggests this could be the result of the sudden and massive waves of epidemics of which we can find testimonies from the 2nd Century AD onwards; the consequences of these epidemics were devastating and made people think about blind fate and the sense of suffering, two sectors both religions offered an elaborate view on; Buddhism offered a way out through an inward journey, and Christianity through the care for the weak and the sick and the outlook on a happy life after death.

Now this theory of McNeill can seem very seductive and logic, but it’s built on a whole lot of premises that are really uncertain; most of all the starting point itself: that before the 2nd century there weren’t such a wave of epidemics at all; McNeill himself always stresses we know too little about them and the sources are lacking. He should have taken this into account when formulating his theory. Furthermore, he does the same when explaining the rise of the Enlightenment in the 18th C. by indicating to the 'cooling-down' of epidemics, leaving room for a more 'rational' approach of the world.

Another feature about this work is that McNeill constantly associates the microparasitarian evolution (the influence of diseases through bacilli and viruses on humans) with the macroparasitarian evolution (the influence of wars, political regimes, tax systems etc.); according to him both are crucial external threats to humanity, in that they can have devastating, disruptive consequences, but remarkably can also create an environment of relative stability, and thus advance the health of men. In his study McNeill continuously looks at both aspects, regularly relating and connecting them, resulting in stunning views, albeit very speculative. McNeill accounts for this twofold approach in a very extraordinary (and according to me quite novel way, at least for an historian in the 1970s) by rejecting the classical cause-effect-approach, p 8 “simple cause-and-effect analysis is inadequate for such systems. Since many variables are simultaneously at work, interacting constantly and altering their magnitudes at irregular rates, it is usually misleading to concentrate attention on a single “cause” and try to attribute a particular “effect” to it. Study of simultaneity among multiple processes is presumably a better way to approach an understanding.” But McNeill hurries to stress that it is often impossible to offer a convincing alternative presentation.

Finally: McNeill states one great, unsettling truth about the study of history, that I would like to give some stress: in our search for logical and coherent explanations we often neglect things that are disruptive, don’t fit in our view on history as a smooth path to prosperity and fulfilment. P 8 “we all want human experience to make sense, and historians cater to this universal demand by emphasizing elements in the past that are calculable, definable, and, often, controllable as well. Epidemic disease, when It did become decisive in peace or in war, ran counter to the effort to make the past intelligible. Historians consequently played such episodes down”.

This study may be outdated and offering questionable theories, it has the merit to offer engaging, global views into human history!

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

(With Covid-19 around this is an obvious reread, I know. I can recommend it, but perhaps better choose a more recent study. Rating 3.5 stars)

"Plagues and Peoples" is a classic and a pioneering study at the same time. A classic, because McNeill (1917-2016) draws from his rich knowledge of world history and looks at the problem of diseases and epidemics from a global point of view, with which he was several decades ahead of the recent World/Global History-movement. A pioneering study, because this book is full of hypotheses and guesses. McNeill has no problem to acknowledge this, simply because before him (this book was published in 1976) hardly any research was done on this issue.

The author constantly indicates deficits in source material and studies, and formulates a number of concrete research questions. I am not a specialist, but I hope that subsequent historians (and medical scientists) have done something with them. Finally, he also illustrates the particular complexity of the role of diseases in human history, with sometimes very paradoxical evolutions (as for instance the fact that initially very densely populated cities and regions were hit hard by diseases, but consequently were the first to develop some form of immunity and thus gained an advantage on less densely populated regions). Definitely an interesting book, but I suspect (and I'm pretty sure) that in the meantime a number of hypotheses of McNeill were verified and confirmed or rejected, and would thus recommend to read a much more recent work on this matter.

[Costas... · Rating 3 out of 5]

Μια εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρουσα αν και δραματική ιστορία με πρωτότυπο στυλ αφήγησης που αφορά την εξέλιξη των ανθρώπινων κοινωνιών σε συνάρτηση με τον αντίκτυπο των μολυσματικών ασθενειών πάνω στους λαούς και τους πολιτισμούς. Μια ιστορία η σημασία της οποίας για την πολιτική και πολιτισμική ιστορία έχει μόλις αρχίσει, για ευνόητους λόγους, στις μέρες μας να γίνεται κατανοητή. Εδώ, ο Μακνήλ επιχειρεί για πρώτη φορά συστηματικά να εξερευνήσει μια σημαντική πτυχή της απαράμιλλης ικανότητάς μας ως είδος να μεταβάλλουμε υπέρ μας τις φυσικές ισορροπίες, καθώς και τα όρια αυτής της ικανότητας.

Τίποτε από όσα έχουν συμβεί από τότε που γράφτηκε το βιβλίο (1975) δεν αντιβαίνει στη γενική του γραμμή. Παραμένουμε μέρος του οικοσυστήματος της Γης και συμμετέχουμε στην τροφική αλυσίδα σκοτώνοντας και τρώγοντας διάφορα ζώα και φυτά, ενώ παράλληλα τα σώματά μας προσφέρουν άφθονη τροφή σε μια μεγάλη γκάμα παρασίτων και μικροοργανισμών. Είναι αδύνατον να φανταστούμε μια μεταβολή στο οικοσύστημα του πλανήτη που θα αλλάξει ριζικά τη θεμελιώδη κατάσταση του ανθρώπινου βίου, παρόλο που οι μεταβολές στη γνώση και τη συμπεριφορά μας μπόρεσαν στο παρελθόν και όντως θα συνεχίσουν στο μέλλον να μεταβάλλουν την εμφάνιση των ασθενειών και την γκάμα των τροφών που καταναλώνουμε.

Για να επιτύχει το σκοπό του ο συγγραφέας, εξετάζει τα σημαντικότερα ιστορικά ορόσημα της διαρκώς μεταβαλλόμενης οικολογικής ισορροπίας ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους ξενιστές και τους νοσογόνους οργανισμούς. Ενδεικτικές και πιο γνωστές περιπτώσεις, αυτή της Μογγολικής Αυτοκρατορίας κατά την περίοδο 1200-1500 μ.Χ. με το βαθύ επιδημιολογικό αποτύπωμα που άφησε στην ιστορία του Παλαιού Κόσμου ή εκείνη της εποχής των ανακαλύψεων με τη δυσοίωνη μοίρα που επιφύλασσαν για τον Νέο Κόσμο οι νέες υπερπόντιες διασυνδέσεις. Βασικά εργαλεία της ανάλυσης του στηρίζονται εξ ολοκλήρου στα μοτίβα αλληλεπίδρασης και συμπεριφορών που καθορίζουν τις σύνθετες διαδικασίες του παρασιτισμού στις μίκρο και μάκρο βιο-εκφάνσεις του.

Η επιστημονική παρατήρηση έχει αποδείξει ότι η αναζήτηση τροφής από έναν οργανισμό γίνεται για τον ξενιστή του μια άσχημη εμπειρία με τη μορφή λοίμωξης ή ασθένειας. Στο περίπλοκο τροφικό πλέγμα του γήινου οικοσυστήματος που χαρακτηρίζεται από τη σιδερένια ακολουθία μεταφοράς ύλης και ενέργειας από οργανισμό σε οργανισμό με τη μορφή τροφής, όλα τα ζώα εξαρτώνται με τον ένα ή άλλο τρόπο από άλλα ζωντανά πλάσματα για την τροφή τους. Έτσι και η ανθρώπινη ζωή δεν μπορεί παρά να είναι δέσμια μιας επισφαλούς ισορροπίας ανάμεσα στον μικροπαρασιτισμό των νοσογόνων οργανισμών και των μακροπαρασιτισμό των μεγαλόσωμων κυνηγών, οι σημαντικότεροι εκ των οποίων -από ένα σημείο και μετά- ήταν ή συνεχίζουν ακόμη να είναι άλλα ανθρώπινα όντα.

Καλό είναι να μην έχουμε αυταπάτες, λέει ο Μακνήλ συμπερασματικά. Η επινοητικότητα, η γνώση και η οργάνωση βελτιώνουν ή θωρακίζουν περαιτέρω την ευπάθεια της ανθρωπότητας στην εισβολή παρασιτικών μορφών ζωής αλλά, δεν μπορούν σε καμία περίπτωση να την ακυρώσουν.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1975 and revised in 1997, Plagues and People remains an ambitious, timely study of the impact of disease on the course of world history. Historian William McNeil posits that two forces micro-parasitism and macro-parasitism are behind the emergence of plagues. Micro-parasitism refers to a shift in the ecosystem that allows a release of new parasites which invariably find homes in human hosts, often with deadly consequences. Macro-parasitism refers to the spread of disease through the human occupation and/ or domination of one group by another. Military campaigns, colonialism, and trade are key examples of this type of disease spread. Obviously, these forces can and often do overlap. McNeill's evidence demonstrates that historically, plagues have taken their most lethal form when they find a virgin population which has had no previous exposure and has not been able to develop antibodies. Sound familiar?

McNeill's analysis begins with changes in the ecosytem caused by the shift from hunting and gathering to agricultural societies and traverses world history through the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's. He examines the role of military victories and the impact of the Bubonic plague. Perhaps most distressing is his chapter documenting the devastation of native populations in the Americas as they encounter European diseases.

In 1975, very little had been written on the role of disease in history. William McNeill was a pioneer. Although, the book could be dense at times, I admired its breadth, scope and scholarship. I gained many insights that helped me to better understand our present situation and place it in historical context.

[Justin Pickett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here a plague, there a plague, everywhere a plague. This book is too descriptive and too surface level, only mentioning past epidemics (from ancient Egypt, Rome, and China to the 20th Century United States) without diving down into the particular “parasitic invasions” and their consequences. I wanted to know the details of what happened in each major case—that is, how the specific societies were infected, responded, recovered, or were conquered (e.g., the Aztecs). Instead, the book spends too much time describing the pre-plague “Peoples” part of the title (e.g., ancient Egypt was like this, ancient China was like this, etc.). Notably, it does cover some of the same ground and make some of the same points as Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, but it’s nowhere near as good. I would recommend forgoing it in favor of Jared Diamond's book, which is one of my favorites.

[Briana Gallegos · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was alright. The author knows his stuff and he's very informative. Most of his conclusions are reasonable, and he provides a fresh look at history that his contemporaries have not accounted for.

However, I hold several reservations concerning his guesswork where information was lacking. McNeill readily admits that he's working with limited sources and most of his conclusions are fine, but there are times when I don't agree with his logic. There's also some outdated concepts within his arguments - natural for a book published in 1976, such as the talk about the parallel evolution of man.

McNeill often gives the course of disease a little too much credit in the course of human history. Microparasite (disease vs. humans) and Macroparasitic (Man vs. Man or animals vs. man) are not the sole motivations in human behavior. Things don't happen that mechanically.

Finally, I had a lot of difficulty with the redundancy and verbose dialog. It wasn't difficult, just excessive.

Eh. It gets a 2-star from me for the last part. Not quite a 3. Still, although it's not a light read, it's an educational one. Worth a look.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a macabre sort of person I had added this to my To Read list before covid was even a water droplet in a sneeze above Wuhan. I had also read Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe which was a study of how the Roman Empire was brought to its knees by an outbreak of the plague, and A Journal of the Plague Year (of particular interest both because I grew up close to where Defoe lived and my childhood friend had a random patch of grass in front of her house which we found out had been a plague pit – so you see my morbid interests were unavoidable). The question then was what more could McNeill’s book from 1973 tell me.

Aside from explaining how diseases spread and why some are more virulent and remain so while others become relatively innocuous childhood diseases it was the context and parallels to how we dealt with and the repercussions of covid that struck me the most. Firstly that plagues/pandemics etc only bring about long term devastation of societies/civilisations if the disease affects people indiscriminately and unpalatable as it may be, it is only those working age adults that we need to be concerned about. If children or the aged are affected then its sad but not decimating as the adults can have more children, crops can still be harvested etc. What struck me is that we created our own devastation by essentially killing off our working adults for 2 years for a disease which was, for the greater part, harmless to them and children and now we are suffering for the self-imposed crippling of society. We could also look to the USA and its not too much of leap to think we are seeing the beginning of that empire’s fall.

Finally I would say how refreshing to read an academic book that covered a lot of the same ground as Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies but at 270 pages was a third of the size largely because McNeill does not think, as Diamond does, that his readers are idiots and therefore needs to repeat himself verbatim and at length in every chapter and he also refrains from telling his readers what they should think – or more accurately what the correct thoughts are. McNeill sticks to the facts and the evidence and allows his readers to think of their own free will. Just imagine….

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are times where our collective ego as a species is a bit blown out of proportion. An example of this was the early presumption before the evidently shocking discoveries of Jane Goodall that some other animals can use tools. But of course, none have created combustion engines aside from us.

In many ways Homo sapiens should be given a badge of honor by the many species out here for its fantastic achievements. Nevertheless though, it is a bit of an over estimation to presume we are near godly. Or to assume that will become homo Deus as the historian Yuval Harari proposed . Granted it’s been quite a few years since the Bible has been written but in many ways the famous statements of god to Adam, in where Adam became ruler of the earth has yet be shed from our collective consciousness.
We treat the entire visible biosphere as a massive playground with our many construction projects, our selection of which animals live and die, and for what degree of flora and fauna a particular block of land shall have.
Our presumption of our god like status has extended across many domains. Today, for obvious reasons I shall focus on modern medicine. While it is the case that great strides have been taken and that our understanding of human pathology and health has far exceeding the likes of Hippocrates, Galen, Ibn Sina or Harvey we though are quite limited in our understanding of the world.
And in all this arrogance we have forgotten of certain microscopic beings who since time immemorial have always been there to give us pause regarding who truly is top dog of this earth. Many of us have mostly forgotten that the word plague was once a word which struck fear into millions. For in our advancements in health care it at times seems like we truly have reached a degree of omnipotence.

The present panic over the coronavirus/ covid-19 are a remnant of deep seated fear that many of us had forgotten about: the history of plagues and how they have impacted society.

This book is an early attempt at a grand history from the perspective of this conflict: us versus the tiny guys. It begins from ancient civilizations and moves up to the mid 20th century . It speak fairly extensively on the many cultures that have been ravaged by disease from the Amerindians, the Black Plague and the thousands in between. It not the greatest and most through social history but it is certainly a good one especially given that the competitors are far and few in between.

Overall this was a good book and will certainly make one realize how good we have it at the moment, and how horrifying human experience has been dealing with these many catastrophes from imperceptible killers.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this book. It took me a while to read it due to personal stuff and the subject matter, but it ended up being one of my favorites (hence the labor of love category). It being a favorite is leading me to believe I have a soft spot for environmental history. Yes the book was much about epidemiology, but the focus was also very much on how certain diseases were possible within certain environments – how they got there, how they survived there, and how those environments were affected in the way of future outbreaks, food cultivation, population growth/ reduction, etc.

You will not get a lot of unknown facts about diseases from this book as the majority of the time periods addressed were prior to formal record keeping and disease identification. However, you will get a great exercise of the mind in the way of a priori thinking and cause and effect relationships. McNeil does a great job of showing us how the evidence that is available - evidence from sources such as religious writings, population records, and recent day archeological finds - can be constructed to shed light on when certain pandemics/epidemics broke out, what they more than likely were, how the specific viruses affected populations, how the human body reacted to the viruses over time, and how those viruses in return reacted to the human body.

Although this book's main subject is epidemiology, it is very similar (although a precursor) to books like Guns, Germs and Steel in that it addresses various macroparisitic and microparisitic effects on the growth of civilizatoins. However, its focus on diseases makes it particularly interesting and provides a sort of mental anchor when thinking about the multitude of variables that has shaped our world. Yes, I can appreciate that after reading this book I am now more aware of the major viruses/diseases that affected our history, but more than anything, that ebb and flow thinking of how the big picture came to be is more concreted in my mind. And this is the book’s greatest value to me.

[Taka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating--

It took me a while to get used to the author's prose—it's often stiff, longwinded, and awkward, especially the first few chapters. But then once I got used to it, it was an excellent read. What's particularly impressive is that in less than 300 pages, McNeill manages to cover the entirety of human history vis-a-vis infectious disease, not JUST in the West, but in the rest of the world. Quite a feat, that. Also, the metaphorical frame of parasitism he uses to analyze society and human relationships with viruses and bacteria was instructive and helped me put the current COVID-19 pandemic in historical perspective—that is, the situation we're facing now is really nothing new at all and not such a big deal compared to massive die-offs (up to 90% or more!) that peoples of the past have faced because of infectious disease.

In short, if you get used to his prose, this book is erudite, sweeping, and fascinating (esp. the account of the Black Death and the Spanish conquest of Mexico). Highly recommended for anyone who'd like to understand how infectious disease has shaped human history since the very beginning.

[Song · Rating 5 out of 5]

在中国政府用“动态清零”，“全民核酸”，“全城封锁”等措施应对国内新冠病毒疫情，尤其是“入户消杀”，“一人感染全楼带走集中隔离”等过激措施，引发普通人普遍焦虑和紧张之时，更不用提因为防疫措施而引发的失学，失业，和破产，读这本书，确实有感受到“历史的慰藉”。因为会发现，传染病自从人类诞生之始就与人类共生，并且贯穿整个人类历史。有疫情的时代是多数，而没有疫情也仅仅是近代医学和公共卫生的发展而出现的短暂局面。瘟疫从未被人类消灭，它也在不断地进化，以找到与人类共生的方式。

历史帮助读者认识到自己在时间长河中的位置，把当下的事件放到更长，更完整的背景中去理解，因此少一点狂热，多一点平静，确实有崇高的价值。

[Brok3n · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a new hammer -- look at all these nails!

In 1973, as a new freshman at Cornell University, I was required to take a course called a "freshman seminar". The purpose of the freshman seminars was to force all new students to write papers, typically one 5-page paper a week and two ten-page papers per semester. When you do that, of course, you get a lot of really dumb papers from virtually uneducated kids. One of my contributions expanded on the idea that, because we had solved most pre-reproductive survival problems, evolution in The Modern World had ground to a halt. It was a very stupid idea, but, in my defense, many far better educated people believed it, and still do. In fact, since the advent of genome sequencing technology, we (for certain values of "we") know that the human population has been under recent strong evolutionary selective pressure. This should not be a surprise to anyone. New selective pressures result from change.

Possible the most consequential such recent change (recent, in this context, meaning "times in the historical record") was the invention of agriculture in the Middle East several thousands of years ago. This has been one of the greatest disasters in history. Agriculture made it possible to produce foods in much greater quantities and concentrations than hunting and gathering. That made cities possible. Agriculture also facilitated domestication of animals. So, post-agriculture we had a lot of people living together in cities, in close contact with domestic animals.

Suddenly infectious diseases became a huge problem. There is abundant evidence that infectious diseases have been a driving force in human evolution. That is not what Plagues and Peoples is about -- not exactly. William H. McNeill's idea is not that infectious disease is a driver of human evolution, but that it is a driver of human history.

Plagues and Peoples is a classic (1977) of Grand World History. This is one of those "I have a new hammer -- look at all these nails!" books. McNeill wants to convince you that infectious disease has been a major force in world history. I'm not a historian, but my impression is that he succeeded: that most historians now would concede that he was onto something. This is a serious scholarly book: thick and careful. Still, I found that McNeill's missionary zeal made it a good read.

Like most zealots, McNeill probably overstates his case. Still, as grand theories of history go, this is a pretty good one. It is my impression that most history is still taught from the discredited "Great Men" point of view (and yes, I use the word "men" intentionally).

Blog review.

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Civilized diseases. This is the book that first alerted me to the way some germs and viruses have altered human history, much as pigeons have become a part of our daily environment. As we have developed the previously virgin landscape of the world, we have unwittingly unleashed the microbes intent on destroying us. Tit-for-tat. Throw in the 'peoples' element, such as Roman legionnaires turning on their own communities or Mongols burning villages and their occupants into ashes, and one wonders why we are still here.

McNeill also looks at how different sectors of humanity handled the constant scourges. While Western Europe became more superstitious, the Moslems were somewhat more enlightened:

When you learn that epidemic disease exists in a county, do not go there; but if it breaks out in the county where you are, do not leave.

Book Season = Winter (when you're shivering with the flu)

[Andrés Astudillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently, a friend of mine just said to me "I feel like the human kind is not ready to learn without feeling pain", and sadly, she is not mistaken. In our genes is the desire to be resilient, hence, suffering is just in the next corner.
William H. McNeill was an american historian, and I guarantee that this is a one of a kind book, something like state-of-the-art. The whole book is chronologically ordered, and unifies both Western and Eastern civilizations. It explains how microparasitism (in his terms) has managed to give directions to human history. He starts with an important point of view: most historians want history to be told as something planned by human minds, and executed by human hands, thus, not considering the full extent , scope of what we nowadays call "pandemic".
I never thought reading history was like reading today's newspaper. Since 1346 people have warned us about not coughing in public, not spitting everywhere we desire, but we keep on doing that.
Please go ahead and click on this link on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgylp...

The page is a live broadcast of the pandemic that started on Wuhan on december 2019, and that obliged WHO to consider it as a pandemic on march 12th 2020. We can see that this pandemic its actually different from any other recorded in history; this one is global and highly contagious. More than a million cases are now confirmed, and almost 65000 deaths as a write. Three things happened that allowed this to occur, first on Wuhan, then worldwide:
1) Increased population growth
2) Anthropocentrism
3) Lack of science investment

The first one explains itself. No wonder why Malthus in 1798 wrote his famous essay of population. There's no way in hell we can exponentially multiply homo sapiens without considering the amount of energy (this word replaces food, and every other resource we need such as medicine, water, electricity, education, etc) that we need to nourish just one human being. China has a population of more than a billion people. The current population of Wuhan in 2020 is 8,365,000 (half of Ecuador's total population in just one city)a 1.2% increase from 2019, with a tendency to continue growing. And that is a FACT for every place in the whole world. A species multiplies for a reason, and the reason is extinction. However, we are the one and only species which is the same reason for extinction. We will be extinct if we continue to expand our numbers like that. There is a history of plagues throughout the world, but nowadays we all act like we dont give a fuck. We consume resources like we are living in a planet as big as Jupiter, but no, our planet is a relatively small one, and the only one we know that can maintain life. I wont reproduce myself, and that's a decision that I made not for me, but for the sake of people I dont even know, or won't even meet.

The second one happened due to the fact that we think are the pinnacle of life as a species. We think we live above every other living thing, that's why we kill and eat everything that moves, we don't care if it has wings, or tails, if its a bug or if it is fucking poisonous. Its no coincidence it happened in a market that sold everything that could walk, swim, fly or crawl this Earth.

The third one, well. Science has not reached its adulthood. Robert Koch first discovered his bacillus in 1882, and the cure came in 1921. My grandmother died due to tuberculosis in Ecuador in 1994. See where I am going? We need more than ever to invest in science. This is the time, we managed to change many things and scenarios for the sake of mankind, but our society needs a drastic change. People in Guayaquil (the most infected city in Ecuador) are on the streets praying, even though they are not allowed to, and they are not using gloves, nor facial protection. This is another point: religion most of the time takes control under these situations. It already did in the Bubonic Plague pandemic in 1346, did it later in the seventeenth century pandemic of cholera, and today's no different.
What would happen if each and every one of us could collaborate to make the world a better place, using logic, evidence and using the scientific method? The human brain comes with a flaw, it is in everyone's brain: a reptilian brain. We are the product of millions of years of evolution and sometimes we don't care about logic but instinct and emotions. That's why we have people with a doctorate's degree but still behave like bastards, or millionaries laughing at infected poor people, or people causing pain to millions in the name of science.

We really need to work in what we call "our nature" and focus on the three previously mentioned points. We are better than this, we can all be a part of a better society whilst respecting the rest of the species that share the same Earth.

[Lauren Bedson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book by William McNeil offers an interesting interpretation of the way that epidemic disease has shaped the course of world history from ancient times to the present day, a topic that the author asserts has been neglected in traditional historical accounts. The book is written in a charmingly old-fashioned style which is pleasant to read, although it is at times a bit tediously wordy and the citations are sparser than I would like.

Nevertheless, here is one passage from the Introduction that I think provides a good example of the interesting theories underpinning this book:

"Disease and parasitism play a pervasive role in all life. A successful search for food on the part of one organism becomes for its host a nasty infection or disease. All animals depend on other living things for food, and human beings are no exception. Problems of finding food and the changing ways human communities have done so are familiar enough in economic histories. The problems of avoiding becoming food for some other organism are less familiar, largely because from very early times human beings have ceased to have much to fear from large-bodied animal predators like lions or wolves. Nevertheless, one can properly think of most human lives as caught in a precarious equilibrium between the microparasitism of disease organisms and the macroparasitism of large-bodied predators, chief among which have been other human beings."

Originally published in 1977, parts are noticeably antiquated, but it remains an interesting and thought-provoking work which has sparked my interest in learning much more about the bubonic plague and the medieval period.

[Trista · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is what I call an "airplane book" as no one will bother you when you read it because its so alarming. Other great books on this genre (different authors) are "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach (much more readable, this author has a charming sense of humor) and the "The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers" by Scott Carney (a very readable author, very much in tune and sympathetic to the subject at hand).

I don't know if this is McNeil's thesis, but it is certainly as dry as one.

McNeil is needlessly dry and academically formal to the point where you can barely pin down what he's saying. He's an author who can't past his own writing style to make direct statements for his readers to understand. There's entire sentences that are incapable of being quoted for factual statements because no one can break them down other than perhaps a specialist in epidemics or similar pathological vectors. On a lark, I quoted a few on my blog to see if a few Ph.D.s could make sense (History, English, etc.) of the statements. We were unable to come to a consensus.

Once you get past that, its an interesting take on how disease, especially parasites, have altered the course of human evolution and civilization. Readers will learn interesting points, such as Sickle Cell Anemia may have developed to combat malaria in Africa and other environs, hence its predominance in specific ethnic groups from those geographic areas.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining, if depressing, book on how history has been shaped by disease and pathogens. If you liked Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, this book is all about the germs, and about more than just the modern era: there are interesting comments on the Black Death and the rise of "childhood diseases" and why the tropics are still to be feared in terms of disease (and why climate change is so worrisome, even though that fear postdates the book by a few decades).

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interdisciplinary work, an epidemiological history of humanity. For me, it represented an entirely new perspective whereby the political events emphasized in standard histories were radically relativized. Indeed, when one compares the devastations and distruptions caused by human agencies to that, say, of rats, the rodents have often come across as more influential than homo sapiens.

[Richard Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody comprehends the universe, because it is almost entirely out of sight. We also can’t see the universe of microorganisms here on Earth, or fully comprehend their powerful influence. Historian William McNeill learned that disease has played a major role in the human journey, and he wrote a fascinating introduction to our intimate companions, the parasites, in Plagues and Peoples.

All critters eat. Hosts provide food, and parasites consume it. Large-bodied parasites, like wolves, are macro-parasites. Wolves kill their hosts. Micro-parasites include bacteria, viruses, and small multi-celled organisms. If they quickly kill their host, the banquet is short. A more stable strategy is to simply take a free ride on a living host, like the billions of bacteria that inhabit our guts, share our meals, and don’t make us sick.

In healthy ecosystems, stability is the norm. Species coevolve, which encourages balance, like the dance of oak trees and squirrels, or the foxes and rabbits. Balance is disturbed by natural disasters, like when an invasion of organic farmers overwhelms an ecosystem with their plows, axes, and enslaved animals. A farming community is a mob of macro-parasites that weakens or destroys its ecosystem host over time. When parasites disturb balance, McNeill calls this disease. “It is not absurd to class the ecological role of humankind in its relationship to other life forms as a disease.”

The ruling classes in civilizations behave like macro-parasites when they siphon nutrients away from the working class hosts that they exploit. To survive, the elites must keep enough farmers alive to maintain an adequate supply of nutrients. Elites rely on violence specialists to protect their host collection from other two-legged macro-parasites, like the bloodthirsty civilization across the river. In this scenario, the worker hosts are suffering from a type of disease (the elites) that is called endemic, because it allows them to survive.

Disease that kills the host is epidemic. “Looked at from the point of view of other organisms, humankind therefore resembles an acute epidemic disease, whose occasional lapses into less virulent forms of behavior have never yet sufficed to permit any really stable, chronic relationship to establish itself.”

Our chimp and bonobo cousins continue to have a stable relationship with their ecosystem. Consequently, there are not seven billion of them. Like them, our pre-human ancestors evolved in a tropical rainforest, a warm and wet ecosystem with immense biodiversity. This diversity included many, many types of parasites, and they lovingly helped to keep our ancestors in balance. Life was good. “The balance between eater and eaten was stable, or nearly so, for long periods of time.”

Then, some too-clever ancestors began fooling around with technology. With spears, we were able to kill more prey, and foolishly eliminate many of the rival predators that helped keep our numbers in check. By and by, our ancestors began leaving Africa, moving into cooler and drier climates. We left behind many tropical parasites, and explored new lands with far fewer parasites. We suffered less disease. We moved into new regions as skilled hunters, and encountered game animals that had no fear of us. With clever new technology, like clothing and huts, our ancestors could sidestep their biological limitations and survive in non-tropical habitats.

Antelope and tsetse flies are unaffected by the sleeping sickness parasites they carry. Many species of burrowing rodents live with the bubonic plague bacteria harmlessly. These relationships are old and stable, but a blind date with a new parasite can be fatal. With the advent of animal domestication, there were many blind dates. We began living in close proximity to other species, and their parasites, to which we had no immunity. This gave birth to the deadly new diseases of civilization, and led to a long era of epidemics.

“Most and probably all of the distinctive infectious diseases of civilization transferred to human populations from animal herds.” Aborigines, who did not enslave herd animals, did not suffer from infectious disease. The same was true for Native Americans, even those who lived in the densely populated regions of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes.

Humans share many diseases with domesticated animals: poultry (26), rats and mice (32), horses (35), pigs (42), sheep and goats (46), cattle (50), and dogs (65). In addition to the diseases of civilization are ancient rainforest diseases like malaria and yellow fever, which were introduced to the Americas by the slave trade.

From 500 B.C. to A.D. 1200, as civilizations developed in different regions of Eurasia, each area developed pools of civilized diseases, some of which became quite popular. India has a wonderful climate for parasites, and it may be where smallpox, cholera, and plague parasites first entered human hosts. Bubonic plague slammed into a virgin population in the Mediterranean basin. The plague of Justinian (A.D. 542-543) hit hard, maybe killing 100 million, about half of Europe.

From 1200 to 1500, the isolated disease pools of Eurasia eventually connected with the others, creating one large pool of civilized diseases. Nomads, like the Mongols, transported parasites back and forth between China and Europe. Parasites also travelled by ship. Black Death began in China around 1331. Between 1200 and 1393, China’s population dropped by half. The disease arrived in Crimea in 1346, spread across Europe, and killed about a third of the people. Muslims believed that those killed by the plague were martyrs, chosen by the will of Allah. They mocked the Christian infidels who successfully limited the spread via quarantines.

Between 1300 and 1700, a number of epidemic diseases became domesticated. To survive, parasites required a steady supply of new hosts without immunity — these were mostly children. A population of 500,000 or more was needed to produce enough new hosts to support an ongoing infestation of measles. If a disease was too virulent, it would eliminate its hosts and die off. Over time, a number of serial killers softened into childhood diseases, like mumps, smallpox, and measles.

From 1500 to 1700, Old World diseases discovered the New World. Europeans and their African slaves were walking disease bombs, but they were mostly immune to the parasites they carried. Native Americans were a virgin population, having no immunity whatsoever to the new parasites, they were blindsided by catastrophic epidemics. The population of Mexico and Peru dropped 90 percent in 120 years.

Since 1700, science has made great advances in death control (not balanced by equal achievements in birth control). Vaccinations have been effective in controlling smallpox and polio. Antibiotics have temporarily provided several decades of relief from a number of infectious parasites. Sewage treatment and water purification systems have also provided temporary relief, during the bubble of abundant energy.

Industrial society, with its radically unhealthy way of life, has created new diseases of civilization, like cancer and heart disease. Influenza is a powerful wild card, because it rapidly mutates, sometimes into highly virulent forms. By the time the vaccines are mass-produced, the pandemic is over. Many new viral diseases, like Ebola and AIDS, are appearing, as the human swarm meets new and exciting rainforest parasites.

The plague bacterium still lives harmlessly in burrowing rodents and their fleas. Over the years, it has spread around the world. By 1940, it was carried by 34 species of burrowing rodents in America, and 35 species of fleas. By 1975, it was found across the western U.S., and portions of Canada and Mexico. Black rats are the vector that moves the parasites into humans. As long as the gas-guzzling garbage trucks keep running regularly, we’ll be safe, maybe.

Modern consumers have had little exposure to epidemic disease, but our elaborate, energy-guzzling systems of death control only provide temporary protection. Sewage treatment, water purification, effective antibiotics, and industrial agriculture have a limited future in a Peak Energy world.

[Ula Tardigrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you discover a book that feels like written especially for you. This was the case.

I was fascinated by the role of germs in human civilization since reading Jared Diamond in the early 2000s. I've learned more and more on this subject, picking new facts from various publications, and suddenly discovered this opus magnum.

McNeill describes whole, global history of our species from the point of view of microbes and viruses, profoundly changing the understanding of many events and their causes. It is slow, dense read, some may call the language dry, but I prefer to call it efficient - almost every sentence reveals surprising facts and links.

It is also very timely. As he writes, "the way infectious diseases have begun to come back shows that we remain caught in the web of life—permanently and irretrievably—no matter how clever we are at altering what we do not like, or how successful we become at displacing other species."

And this book was written in 1976! It's a pity it isn't more widely known. I highly recommend it!

[Ram Kaushik · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, the good stuff. A very persuasive central thesis: history has been influenced much more by epidemics, than the usually touted smart-and-ruthless-conquest theories. Disease has been a weapon wielded by many conquerors and the microbe has been mightier than the sword. The author is a Professor Emeritus at the Univ of Chicago and his scholarship not only shows, but permeates the book ad nauseam.

Prof. McNeill covers history from the early development of humans and their uneasy symbiotic relationship with bacteria and viruses, to modern times with antibiotics. Plagues, dengue, influenza, malaria and other diseases have cut empires to size, and have made emperors out of commoners. One of the interesting perspectives in this book is looking at history from the viewpoint of the microbe and its survival instincts. Lots of interesting stories abound - from the Mongol raids carrying epidemics to kingdoms without immunity, and of course the decimation of native Americans by the Spanish and European colonizers. Think of this book as the expansion of "Germs" from Guns. Germs and Steel.

Now the bad. The writing was tortuous, pretentious and downright unreadable without large doses of whisky. (not that I'm an imbiber, but just saying...) Writing in the social sciences has improved beyond recognition in the four decades since this book was published. Here's a sample paragraph from Page 233.

"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Amerindian die-off was at its peak, the homogenization of civilized infectious disease throughout the world gradually attained such a level that the old forms of sporadic epidemic that could carry off up to half the population of a particular community in a single season could no longer occur in those parts of the world where long exposure to the multiplicity of infectious organisms created suitably complex patterns of immunity among all but young children."

If that doesn't make you call your dentist begging for a root canal instead, I salute you.

Some of Prof. McNeill's theories are by his own admission, speculative. For example, his theories about the Hindu caste system being perhaps influenced by fear of contagion by the Aryans from conquered tribes was dubious. Also, he speculates that the Europeans during the Renaissance were perhaps more open to scientific analysis of medicine and disease than the Eastern mystical religions, which viewed disease as the cross of God to bear with fortitude. Seriously? This from a civilization that defended cutting-edge medicine of treatment by leeches and frequent bleeds, in addition to killing Jews to avoid plagues? He offers scant evidence to defend these speculations about cultural determinism.

Anyway, regardless of some theories showing their age, Prof. McNeill was apparently a pioneer in viewing epidemics as a prime driver influencing the course of history. I cautiously recommend this book, with this disclaimer: plan a hefty dose of Ibuprofens for several weeks.

I'm off to read a P.G. Wodehouse or some other suitably low-brow murder mystery.

[Sean Patrick Holland · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the top 3 nonfiction books I've ever read. Highly recommended to everyone, especially for some perspective on our current crisis.

Some caveats: 1. you need to be ok with a certain level of speculation. This isn't 1421 level nonsense however, as McNeill has clearly put in both the research and the thought around the world epidemiological history. 2. you need to be ok with some serious vocabulary. This very likely has the highest letter-per-word count of any book I've ever read.

Plagues and Peoples dives into the history of micro- (e.g. cellular) and macro- (e.g. relations between peasants and governments) to describe the interrelationships between vastly different systems. It's a brilliant overview of world history, and a perfect complement to Why the West Rules for Now, and Guns, Germs and Steel.

Again, highest recommendation.

[Linus Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

McNeill in this seminal volume offers a very interesting and informative overview of the past interactions and continuing interactions between so-called "macroparasitism"--that is, predation of man upon man--and "microparasitism"--the relation between tribes or nations of men and the organisms in their microenvironment. This may be one of the first books to systematically examine the equilibrium that develops over time as diseases adapt to hosts, and how that microparasitic equilibrium can be disturbed by macroparasitic movements of people, whether through war or trade or expansion. A book that anybody who is interested in medical history should read.

[Alexei · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, of course, a pioneering work, at least it was when first published: explaining (almost) the entire civilizing process as a competition between microparasites, i. e. germs, and macroparasites, i. e. various conquerors and tyrants. A bit of an overstretch though for various reasons, of which the scarcity of the historic record is paramount, but also unclear to what extent liberal democracy is friend or foe - perhaps a brief deviation. The theory seems to work best at the early stages of human development.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry to say that this book just bored the sh** outta me. To me, it was a long drug out way of saying "as the population grew and communities became more populated and people began to travel more, disease spread easier and more rapidly".

There ya' go.....that's the first half of this book in one sentence. And that's as far as I'm goin'. Like all books it's a matter of taste. You may love it. As for me...... No sir, didn't like it.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olipa harvinaisen kuumottava historiatutkimuksen näkökulma.

Harvoin ajaudun vielä tänä päivänä lukemaan mitään näin silmiä avaavaa. Ihmettelen, ettei mitään vastaavaa luetettu vaikkapa yliopiston syventävillä kursseilla. Mieleen tulee heti eräs aikoinaan käymäni kurssi lääketieteen historiasta, jolle tämä teos olisi sopinut loistavasti, vaikkei suoranaisesti lääkehoitoa käsittelekään. Kiinnostaa, onko vastaavasta lähestymiskulmasta tehty päivitettyä tutkimusta. Tahdon lukea tämän pian uudelleen ja yhä enemmän ajatuksella. Uskomatonta, etten ole koskaan tullut ajatelleeksi, kuinka suurella skaalalla tartuntataudit (niiden läsnäolo ja poissaolo) ovat muovanneet maailmaa sellaiseksi, kuin se nyt on.

Kirjan sisältö tuntui välillä olevan jaettu erikoisesti; alustus oli pitkä, ja ihmisen alkuaikoja käsiteltiin melko laajalti verrattuna myöhempiin aikoihin. Tai sitten itseä alkoi kiinnostaa enemmän juuri myöhempien aikojen ruttomähinät sun muut, kun paska niin sanotusti lensi tuulettimeen. Joka tapauksessa olisin lukenut mielelläni lisää etenkin keskiajan jälkeisestä ajasta, ja silloisesta kansojen muodostumisesta maailmanlaajuisesti tästä näkökulmasta. Lyhyesti: olisin vain halunnut lukea lisää, aivan kaikesta tässä teoksessa.

[Alex Zakharov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written back in ’76 the view expressed in the book is only more pertinent today when we have no dearth of theories explaining macro-level human state development and history (J. Diamond, I. Morris, F. Fukuyama, D. Landes, D.Acemoglue, J. Henrich). McNeill asserts that for most of history human intelligence was completely blind when it came to microbiology and as a result to this day we underestimate the effects that pathogens have had on development of human societies. His sets out to correct that misconception.

The canonical example that everybody today is familiar with is of course the massive role that smallpox played in the colonization of the New World (Cortez-Aztecs and Pizarro-Incas) – this particular account got incorporated into mainstream historical zeitgeist by Diamond’s “Guns, Germs & Steel” written 20 years after McNeill’s “Plagues and Peoples”. McNeill’s paints the whole human history through this prism, confining New World colonization to just one chapter. His account is often speculative but is utterly mesmerizing. It’s as if you’ve been looking at various models of societal development (institutions, culture, geography) and then realized that you’ve been missing a huge confounding variable all along.

A sampling of ideas:

- Mutual accommodation between host and parasite. The latter doesn’t want kill or be killed by the former, feeding on the host is the main intent, and it usually takes a few co-evolutionary attempts to get this right. Viruses/bacteria have vastly faster evolution rates relative to humans of course, so to stabilize the response need on the order of 120-150 years(?). A series of epidemics may finally result in an endemic infection for a given population and appropriate population density.

- Another little pearl as lesson learned: the more diseased the community the less destructive epidemics become.

- Micro (pathogens) vs macro (state-driven extraction, warfare) parasites. Expansion of civilization as a macroparasitic activity in two ways: state/nobles taxing the populace (typically peasants) without suffocating it, and larger (city-centric) civilization more easily consuming virgin rural populations of peripheral tribes with aid of infection (digestion metaphor).

- Disease gradient (North [cool, dry] to South [warm, moist]) as a factor in human expansions (North makes it much harder for parasites to survive outside the host). Fascinating implications for Chinese and India development for example. In China centralized state established relatively rapidly along the Yellow river but took a few centuries further south in Yangtze river delta. In India state expansion into south east direction was badly impeded and in fact McNeill’s views the caste system as social response to inability to find immunological balance between civilized diseases of the city and various ‘peoples of the forest’. It is instructive to compare these with Fukuyama’s account of state formation and decay in China and India. (Also, note the differences between early human expansions from south to north in Mediterranean/Europe and north to south when humans first entered the Americas).

- Today it is hard to comprehend the disproportional effect of diseases on regional population sizes throughout history. Until 20th century disease was by far the biggest killer and dwarfed any military conflict. E.g. Black death wiped out a third of European population and about half of China when it hit. Smallpox in Americas wiped out 90% off the bat and bottomed out at 95% death rate. Estimates of Mediterranean plague (6th century AD) are in 25-50 million range. Staggering.

- Such population losses had to have had an effect on social fabric, taxation, religions, warfare, imperial expansions in all sorts of ways. For example throughout the book McNeills speculates on rise and fall of various religions as a function of disease conditions on the ground. Buddhism with its insistence on escape from suffering and neglect of earthly possessions was very suitable for India which had great difficulties finding proper balance with microparasites which in turn decreased extractive margins for macro-parasites. Contrast to Confucianism in China. Conversion of Amerindians to Christianity (Europeans must have had the god on their side for local populations to suffer such losses…). Rise of Christianity in Mediterranean early in AD which explained early infections disease cycles much better than paganism. Rise of Enlightened Deism in Europe when some semblance of control of one’s life became a possibility with the help of early medical advances.

- Some other effects. Moslem expansion as Roman and Persian empires took heavy losses to plagues in preceding centuries. Mongols’ connecting networks were part of their success but also spread disease which ironically enough eventually hit Mongols themselves possibly precipitating their loss to China. 18th Century British domination over France (British experienced appreciable population growth having accepted inoculation practices before continental Europe)

- Nice correction to Henrich’s thesis of opaque knowledge being preserved by culture due to positive effects. Often true, but not always - religious pilgrimages coupled with mass group ablutions had rather negative effect as they often acted as literal disease pools with pronounced infection rates. I guess you’d have to look on the net religion effect to make the final call so opaque “beneficial” knowledge thesis may stand.

- Important transition in 1900 when in Europe the sanitation practices finally made the population growth in cities self-sustaining. No longer required constant replenishing of population from surrounding rural areas. That was a change to 5 thousand year-long pattern of city-village population flow relationship. Economic and social side effects ensued.

[Brenda Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plagues and Peoples, lays before the reader an epidemiological timeline detailing the interwoven relationship between epidemic disease and mankind’s ecological conquest of our planet spanning millennia.

From the Mongols sweeping across the Eurasian steppe during the Middle Ages spreading Black Death as they went, through the cataclysmic introduction of smallpox to the New World by European explorers in 1518, and on to modern medicine’s 1976 eradication of smallpox, followed quickly by the discovery of HIV and AIDS, it becomes readily apparent to the reader that mankind is intimately tied to the worldwide spread of disease. McNeill even suggests that mankind is, as a whole, itself “a disease” and we have interrupted nature’s ecological balance on a global scale.

It appears that diseases are making a comeback and this book is a great read and is educational throughout . It makes one think as McNeill gives a different perspective and it is notable that at the centre of every historical instance of an epidemic outbreak or pandemic catastrophe there is a single common factor, mankind, who will be at the centre of the action. Covid -19 is a prime example of this.

[Ruth Rhodé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik denk dat dit werk echt iets belangrijks doet. Zoals mooi wordt uitgelegd door de schrijven op pagina 222:

“Historians have never been comfortable when trying to deal with such ‘accidents’, and it is partly for that reasons that the history of disease had been so little attended to by my predecessors. (…) Though it is the aim of this book to correct such oversight and bring the role of infectious disease in shaping human history into a juster perspective than others have allowed, it remains the case that accidental events like this, however pervasive the results which may be thought to have flowed from them, seem somehow too trifling to be credited with vast consequences.”