Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.51809041
EAN: 9780143034483
ISBN: 0143034480
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 560
Publication Date: February 01, 2005
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: February 01, 2005
Sales Rank: 504823
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
In the winter of 1918, 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 weeks than AIDS has 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, John M. Barry weaves together multiple narratives, with characters ranging from William Welch (founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School) to John D. Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson. Ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, this crisis provides a precise and sobering model for our world as we confront AIDS, bioterrorism, and other, as yet unknown, diseases.




Rating: - Interesting
It is interesting. However, the author belittles the Public Health Service labs as wasting time investigating Bayer asprin as a possible agent of germ warfare. This was a very real possiblity and not hysterical fear-mongering. Bayer chemists were the inventors of chlorine gas. In fact, during WWII Bayer (as part of IG Farben) supplied Mengele with drugs to test on concentration victims!

More people should have listed to the PHS.

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Rating: - Terrifying
Once upon a time I read The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story, a book about emergent viruses like ebola, then read Stephen King's The Stand, which painted a graphic picture of life during and after a deadly plague. I thought this was the most terrifying combination of books I could read. I was wrong.

The Great Influenza is more blood-curdling than all that. And John Barry keeps repeating "and it was just influenza."

If we count every single AIDS fatality and add to them ... Read More

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Rating: - Great history of medicine and the early 20th Century
Although I purchased this book a couple of years ago, I hadn't gotten to it until just now. I moved it to the top of my To Read list after finishing The Last Town on Earth, which is a fictionalized account of the 1918 flu. I wasn't expecting the detailed history of how our medical profession modernized, and the history of the origins of Johns Hopkins, although I was pleasantly surprised to find it here. I also found the general policies instituted by the Wilson administration, utterly suppressing ... Read More

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Rating: - A Hot Read
A detailed look at the horrible influenza epidemic that decimated not only the United States but most of the world in 1918, killing tens of millions and sickening many more. An excellent job of explaining the biological and medical complexities of the disease, detailing the history of often shoddy medical education in the United States, and relating the Spanish flu's human and emotional toll through vivid anecdotes of personal hardship and horror. The book reads well as a medical detective story and ... Read More

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Rating: - The Great Influenza
I liked this book it is a big thick book that takes a long time to read. If you enjoy history and you know it repeats itself. It is an interesting book to buy.

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