Plagues upon the Earth
"Plagues upon the Earth is a history of human civilization and the germs that have shaped its course. At every stage in our species' past, micro-organisms have had macro-effects on the development of human societies. Kyle Harper proposes the first history of human disease to make full use of a radical new source of evidence: pathogen genomes as a biological archive and window into prehistoric times. We can now begin to reconstruct the natural history of human disease at the molecular level, tracing the biographies of the viruses, bacteria, and protozoa that have haunted our species. The story reveals, Harper will show, the continuing importance of the deep past in determining the patterns of global divergence today. Plagues upon the Earth puts the dynamic two-way relationship between humanity and its germs in the foreground. The takeover and transformation of the planet by Homo sapiens has been the most powerful force shaping the evolution of microbial pathogens, and in turn, pathogen evolution has been a decisive influence on the destiny of human societies.
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- Plagues Upon the Earth is maybe even more on point to the plague bit in particular, with the co-evolution of human society and infectious disease over history taking the front stage.
- The best non-fiction book I read in 2022 was Plagues Upon the Earth (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57423807-plagues-upon-th...) a history of infectious disease in humans. It really changed my views on a lot of things, especially how recently many contagious diseases crossed over from animals.
The best fiction book I read in 2022 was Spinning Silver (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36896898-spinning-silver). A really awesome riff on Russian fairy tales.
- A fascinating insight for me came via Kyle Harper's book The Fate of Rome: plagues co-evolve to match civilisations.
<https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166834/th...>
That is, the Antonine, and other plauges of Rome relied on the dense urbanisation, highly-developed transportation, and long-range trading patterns, all of which served to provide the conditions in which pathogens which were either benign or simply too virulent to establish themselves in smaller, less-interconnected communities --- in such cases the epidemics would simply burn themselves out, perhaps decimating a village or small trading group of same, but not spreading further.
The fact that Yersinia pestis seems to have evolved first in rodent populations (themselves often microcosms of human civilisations with large and interconnected population clusters) seems relevant. IIRC Harper cites hamsters or gerbils as the prior host species to humans.
James Burke, of Connections fame, stated in a later interview "ReConnections* of how he'd extend the episodes of the original series that a key consequence of jet air travel would be an increased spread of global pandemics. This occurs toward the end of this video:
<https://archive.org/details/JamesBurkeReConnections_0>
More broadly, it seems to me that any network will co-evolve parasite or pathogenic entities, whether we're talking human cities (look at the long list of urban vices, online abuse, network issues, and the like). One factor contributing to the "golden age" effect is that such ages exist before the parasites / pathogens evolve. As such, the sense that "something went wrong" seems to me misled, and a better formulation would be that such golden ages were living on borrowed time in the first place.
Podcast episode of Harper addressing a similar theme from Plagues Upon the Earth: <https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBN2511895438.mp3>.
- This is a podcast episode and interview with the author of Plagues Upon the Earth, Oklahoma University historian Kyle Harper.
Direct audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBN2511895438.mp3
