The Great Influenza
At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.
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9recommend
22mentions
20people
2016–2026years
41% recommend59% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Faber Book of Science (Carey) Asimov’s New Guide to Science (Asimov) The Great Influenza (Barry)
- COVID is not a good model for the Spanish influenza.
I highly recommend The Great Influenza:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi...
We were so desperately lucky. It was not "like covid".
- For a fascinating, in-depth look at the Spanish flu of 1918 check out John Barry’s “The Great Influenza” [1]. The book was amazing and gives you a real sense of what one of the worst pandemics in history must have been like.
[1] The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491.
- The Great Influenza by John Barry for some perspective on current events. A good read so far.
- There is a book on this: The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History, by John M. Barry. I found it fascinating.
- This is a fantastic book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi...
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