Author: Laura Spinney
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610397681
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Get Book Here
Book Description
In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska, and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus -- one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on twentieth-century history. The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth -- from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted -- and often permanently altered -- global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid, and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true "lost generation." Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology and economics, Pale Rider masterfully recounts the little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107394015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Get Book Here
Book Description
Between August 1918 and March 1919 the Spanish influenza spread worldwide, claiming over 25 million lives - more people than perished in the fighting of the First World War. It proved fatal to at least a half-million Americans. Yet, the Spanish flu pandemic is largely forgotten today. In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-stricken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of national memory of this cataclysmic event. This 2003 edition includes a preface discussing the then recent outbreaks of diseases, including the Asian flu and the SARS epidemic.
Author: John M. Barry
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143036494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Get Book Here
Book Description
#1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, 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.
Author: Hourly History
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44
Get Book Here
Book Description
Discover the remarkable history of the Spanish Flu...The 1918 outbreak of the H1N1 strain of influenza, popularly known as the Spanish flu, killed more people worldwide than World War I, which ended the same year. It infected nearly one-third of the world's population and killed ten percent of those it struck. In its wake, schools and businesses closed, hospitals became overwhelmed, and the sick spilled out into makeshift care centers in public spaces. Policemen, public transportation workers, and everyday citizens in face masks were a common-and eerie-sight. Yet, discussion of this global pandemic often takes a backseat to World War I and other contemporary events. In this book, we revisit this terrifying time that left the world in fear. Discover a plethora of topics such as The World in 1918 The Beginning of the Outbreak What was the Spanish Flu? The Third and Final Wave Aftermath The Strange Legacy of the Spanish Flu And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Spanish Flu, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!
Author: Gina Kolata
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429979356
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Get Book Here
Book Description
Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.
Author: Jaime Breitnauer
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526745186
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Get Book Here
Book Description
A look at the 1918 influenza pandemic from its outbreak to its effects on the global population and its legacy. On the second Monday of March, 1918, the world changed forever. What seemed like a harmless cold morphed into a global pandemic that would wipe out as many as a hundred-million people—ten times as many as the Great War. German troops faltered, lending the allies the winning advantage, and India turned its sights to independence while South Africa turned to God. In Western Samoa, a quarter of the population died; in some parts of Alaska, whole villages were wiped out. Civil unrest sparked by influenza shaped nations and heralded a new era of public health where people were no longer blamed for contracting disease. Using real case histories, we take a journey through the world in 1918, and look at the impact of Spanish flu on populations from America to France and the Arctic, and at the scientific legacy this deadly virus has left behind. “Breitnauer puts the whole thing into perspective with a fascinating account of the origin and extent of the outbreak, at a time when people were returning from the conflict expecting a brave new world and instead confronting one of the deadliest epidemics ever to hit mankind.” —Books Monthly (UK)
Author: R. Davis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137339217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Get Book Here
Book Description
The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic is now widely recognized as the most devastating disease outbreak in recorded history. This cultural history reconstructs Spaniards' experience of the flu and traces the emergence of various competing narratives that arose in response to bacteriology's failure to explain and contain the disease's spread.
Author: David Killingray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134566409
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 was the worst pandemic of modern times, claiming over 30 million lives in less than six months. In the hardest hit societies, everything else was put aside in a bid to cope with its ravages. It left millions orphaned and medical science desperate to find its cause. Despite the magnitude of its impact, few scholarly attempts have been made to examine this calamity in its many-sided complexity. On a global, multidisciplinary scale, the book seeks to apply the insights of a wide range of social and medical sciences to an investigation of the pandemic. Topics covered include the historiography of the pandemic, its virology, the enormous demographic impact, the medical and governmental responses it elicited, and its long-term effects, particularly the recent attempts to identify the precise causative virus from specimens taken from flu victims in 1918, or victims buried in the Arctic permafrost at that time.
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309095042
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 431
Get Book Here
Book Description
Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.
Author: John Allen
Publisher: Referencepoint Press
ISBN: 9781678201050
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Spanish flu, which spread worldwide from 1918 to 1920, remains the deadliest pandemic in history. Emerging in the last year of World War I, it killed tens of millions and spurred major changes in how societies protect public health. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 explores the causes, the spread, the effects on people's lives, as well as efforts to treat the disease and halt its spread.
