Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History

by Kyle Harper

Overview

A sweeping germ’s-eye view of history from human origins to global pandemics

Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality. He also tells the story of humanity’s escape from infectious disease—a triumph that makes life as we know it possible, yet destabilizes the environment and fosters new diseases.

Panoramic in scope, Plagues upon the Earth traces the role of disease in the transition to farming, the spread of cities, the advance of transportation, and the stupendous increase in human population. Harper offers a new interpretation of humanity’s path to control over infectious disease—one where rising evolutionary threats constantly push back against human progress, and where the devastating effects of modernization contribute to the great divergence between societies. The book reminds us that human health is globally interdependent—and inseparable from the well-being of the planet itself.

Putting the COVID-19 pandemic in perspective, Plagues upon the Earth tells the story of how we got here as a species, and it may help us decide where we want to go.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691224725
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Series:	The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	704
Sales rank:	42,353
File size:	45 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Kyle Harper is professor of classics and letters at the University of Oklahoma. His books include The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton) and From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity. He lives in Moore, Oklahoma. Website kyleharper.net Twitter @Oklahomaharper

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“What a magnificent accomplishment! Plagues upon the Earth illuminates the inexorable toll of infectious disease on humankind over thousands of years. The net effect is a clarion cry beseeching us to forswear denial and hubris for realism and collaboration when it comes to our vulnerability to disease. Readable, global, and provocative, this book speaks to the human condition itself.”—Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82

“The ordeal of COVID-19 reminds us of the power of infectious disease in human affairs. Harper’s lively overview illuminates the global historical role of infectious disease as no previous book has done, taking advantage of the fresh harvest of information about disease history now available through genomic sequencing. A triumph of synoptic history on a crucial and all too timely subject.”—J. R. McNeill, coauthor of The Great Acceleration

“Kyle Harper has written the perfect update to William McNeill’s twentieth-century groundbreaking book, Plagues and Peoples, drawing on twenty-first-century science to show how viruses, bacteria, and other microbes have changed the course of history and threaten our survival. This monumental work spans the history of humanity and our species’ constantly evolving landscape of microscopic threat. It’s a jaw-dropping contribution to the canon of literature on pandemics, outbreaks, and microbial impact on human history.”—Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Timely, comprehensive, and fluently written. Plagues upon the Earth represents a superb unification of the latest evidence about infectious diseases from prehistory until the present: diseases that changed the course of world history more than treaties, wars, and nations. If viruses and bacteria could have selected their own most worthy biographer, they couldn’t have done better than to have chosen Kyle Harper to narrate their long history.”—James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain

“Comprehensive and accessible. Everyone should read Plagues upon the Earth in order to understand the role of disease in our history, and in our future.”—Susan P. Mattern, author of The Slow Moon Climbs

“Reading Harper’s masterful book is like witnessing firsthand the terror of Pompeii, except that it is not the eruption of Vesuvius that fills us with fear and awe but rather deadly epidemics as they unfold across the centuries. Plagues upon the Earth illuminates the history of humanity and its diseases while providing important insights into the COVID-19 pandemic.”—Peter J. Hotez, author of Preventing the Next Pandemic

Editorial Reviews

A New Statesman Essential Non-Fiction Book of 2021

Winner of the PROSE Award in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Association of American Publishers

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year

From the Publisher

"This is a solid book, superbly referenced and interdisciplinary, covering disease from pre-human origins to the present, and making extensive use of published DNA comparisons and descriptions of plagues by historical observers."

Choice

"[A] sweeping masterpiece. . . . It’s difficult for me to think of anyone who will not find something eye-opening and enlightening in the pages of this comprehensive, beautifully written and eloquent book."

Forbes

"This magnificent book stood out as much for its nuance and academic rigour as it did for its readability."

Inquisitive Biologist

"Magisterial."

Prospect

2021-07-14
A survey of infectious disease as an agent in shaping human history.

In a well-conceived, somewhat overlong example of what the renowned biologist E.O. Wilson calls consilience, classics professor Harper combs through the literature of history, economics, epidemiology, and other disciplines to deliver a solid study of the role of infectious disease in the human story. “The dominance of Homo sapiensover its microbial enemies is astonishingly recent,” he writes. Until the 19th century, most people died of microbial diseases such as the bubonic plague and cholera, and only when societies set aside other priorities and performed such collective enterprises as draining swamps and installing sewers did the death toll fall and human life extend past 35 or so. Those mortality patterns, Harper writes, have a chicken-and-egg aspect. By enhancing human capital with workers who don’t die before they’ve mastered their trades, they add wealth to society, and adding wealth provides the wherewithal to combat diseases and augment human capital. Harper writes appreciatively of what has been called the “Great Escape,” by which human societies have thus unhooked themselves from the devastating effects of plague—though plague always manages to sneak back into the picture, as the recent pandemic has demonstrated. The author turns up intriguing tidbits in his travels through the literature, such as the fact that humans are unusually susceptible to viruses that seem to have evolved specifically to target us. “Our chimpanzee cousins,” he writes, “who live in the jungle, eat raw monkey for breakfast, never bathe, and make a habit of chewing on their own feces, endure only a fraction of the viral diversity that we do.” Harper ventures that we may in fact be weaker by virtue of having tamed so many epidemic diseases. Interestingly, he also locates the origins of many public health practices of today in the Middle Ages through institutions that grew as urban centers did.

Harper’s long-view study is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on epidemic disease.

Kirkus Reviews