The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

The Great Mortality is a good book for the general reader who wants to know more about the Black Death of the late 1340s, and that is both good and bad. It provides a broad overview from many parts of Europe and some parts of the East, but then there are enormous gaps in the story. What happened in India? Japan? Most of Africa? What were the Black Death effects on Malta, which would have a major plague epidemic in the 1600s? (That omission seemed particularly odd, as a comparison of the two outbreaks on Malta could provide interesting contrasts and comparisons.)Many aspects of the 1340s plague descriptions are compared to the known symptoms from more recent outbreaks of bubonic plague, but again there are puzzling omissions, which - how could you not want to find the answer?? Medieval historians sometimes mentioned that the plague buboes made noise! I mean - how? What kind? Have the buboes of modern victims made noise? Not a word about that. As the New Yorker used to say, "Our forgetful authors".The author kindly throws in some light-hearted comments amidst all the "death and death and death", and that is sometimes a relief; but sadly, the most amusing moment in the book (I have the trade paperback edition) arrives on page 12, where an editing or proofing error results in these sentences: "Plague is a disease of rodents. People are simply collateral damage, wastage in a titanic global struggle between the plague bacillus Yersinia pestis and the world's rodent population. Y. pestis's natural prey are turbots, marmots, rats, squirrels, gerbils, prairie dogs, and roughly two hundred other rodent species." Well. I have heard of all the animals mentioned, and they are all, except one, indeed, rodents. But that one - the first mentioned - is not a rodent nor even a mammal. I double-checked!!! Turbots are FISH. Then I found myself trying to conceptualize Y pestis thriving underwater and somehow, without benefit of fleas (unless the fleas were equipped with tiny SCUBA gear, which they jettisoned upon the fish being hauled in by human fishermen), transmitting themselves into the human bloodstream. Maybe if this happened in Japan and the human ate sushi? Why are such egregious errors permitted? Where do they even come from? The closest I could imagine was an unnoticed spell-check error, where the word "tarabagan" (a type of marmot found in Siberia, Mongolia and Northwestern China) was changed to the much more common "turbot". The only rodent I could find with a name beginning with "tu" is the tuco-tuco of South America, which is EXTREMELY unlikely to have had any relevance to the Black Death - since it is a New World rodent! Sorry, but finding this whopping error in a "scientific" book makes me wonder about all the "facts" presented about subjects of which I know nothing. The ones I wouldn't even know enough to question. It's a slippery slope when such errors are allowed to stand. Even though that one was funny!

In the classic 1964 movie "Failsafe" Walter Matthau, playing a Kissingeresque civilian advisor to the Pentagon, makes an argument for the survivability of nuclear holocaust. He observed chillingly that nuclear aftermath would be similar to medieval times, when plagues wiped out entire populations. It is not comforting to read that in real life, the US Atomic Energy Commission to this day uses the Great Plague of 1347-52 as the best predictor of the aftermath of nuclear war.[11] John Kelly gives us a look into the causes, the experiences, and the effects of an epidemic that literally destroyed half the known world, the so-called Black Death.In a story that lends itself naturally to superlatives, Kelly's chronicle begins in a sanguine fashion with an explanation of the evolution of the bacillus "Y Pestis." Y Pestis was no stranger to man before 1347; the organism was probably responsible for a notorious plague during the reign of Justinian. One of the disturbing features of viruses, one that is now becoming more acutely implanted in the contemporary human consciousness, is the ability to mutate or adapt. The great concern over Avian flu is that precisely such an adaptation may be occurring as of this writing.Y Pestis made one its routine mutations in the fourteenth century, in the flatlands between Russia and China. Initially this was a problem only for the local field rat population. Kelly observes, though, that any kind of natural phenomenon--earthquake, drought, flood--often spelled trouble for humans, as rats were displaced from normal burrow habitats and moved closer to human settlements and villages, carrying their diseases du jour.Unfortunately, the timeless rat and the inventive Y Pestis found themselves in a revolutionary new epoch, the zenith of the Middle Ages. The barren Asian prairies were now crisscrossed by trade routes heading in both directions. As Europe evolved into a continent of commercially driven cities, and as feudal isolation gave way to urban congestion, the demand for markets and goods by land and sea made a global pandemic possible for the first time. By 1347 a Tartar army laid siege to the city of Caffa on the northern shore of the Black Sea. Kelly favors the theory that the Tartars brought Y Pestis with rats in their train. In any event, the siege petered out when both forces succumbed to the disease and Caffa would become an historical marker for the disease's entry into Europe.From Caffa the disease was communicated quickly by seafarers, first infecting Constantinople and then in rapid progression the major ports of the Mediterranean, from whence it progressed along rivers and highways alike. Eyewitnesses reported that contagion seemed to occur with incredible speed; just the slightest conversation with infected sailors seemed to transmit the illness. The actual manner of transmission, by fleas or by airborne bacilli, appears to be somewhat in dispute to this day. The speed of contagion, and the attendant morbid symptoms, produced near panic conditions. The term "bubonic plague" is derived from an outbreak of egg-sized growths or "buboes" on the human torso, particularly in the area of the groin and armpit. The bubo was only the worst of a series of catastrophic symptoms, about as severe and unusual as the human imagination wants to go.Kelly discusses in considerable detail why medieval Europe was ripe for such a catastrophe. Generally speaking, the prosperity of the Middle Ages had crested about a century earlier, c. 1250. The next century would see a general decline in farm productivity due to constant warfare, weather, and a demographic shift to cities. In fact, much of Europe was emerging from drought and food shortages, conditions that generally weakened human resistance and brought vermin closer to urban centers, as the disease arrived. Interestingly, Kelly suggests that without the Great Plague, Europe would have faced what he called "a Malthusian deadlock." [293] The tremendous population growth of the previous century had placed insurmountable strain upon the economic substructure. The post-plague Europe would prove to be a revitalized Europe.This was small comfort for those who lived through this nightmare. Kelly depends upon two invaluable sources: chroniclers and vital statistics. Chroniclers were not always accurate, and their death estimates sometimes exceeded the actual population of the cities reported. What they did report with great accuracy was the temper of the times, which ranged from pure panic to bacchanalian resignation. The Black Death brought out the best and the worst in every stratum of life: parents who abandoned children, parents who died for the children. Priests who tended the dying and dead; priests who fled to the mountains. One group of officials who remained remarkably persistent were notaries. Kelly draws heavily from their record keeping, which appears constant throughout the crisis. Notaries drew wills, settled accounts, recorded burials, and generally gave historians something of a barometer for actual population decreases. Kelly estimates a death rate of about 50% for nearly every segment of Europe; only Ireland's percentage appeared somewhat lower.By 1352 the plague, having arrived in Moscow, finally abated, having completed the hangman's noose around Europe. Kelly provides what might be called a medical Monday morning summary of events, reviewing the scientific literature from medieval times to the present day as to the precise nature of this event. Biological terrorism and recent virus mutations make this a valuable discussion. If there are any deficiencies in this work, it may be the absence of reflection upon the meaning of so terrible a disaster, in the way we reflect upon the meaning of the Holocaust. Sadly, the Black Plague unleashed unprecedented waves of anti-Semitism. Perhaps such searchings for meaning escape words. Look at the grotesque cover of this work [which I tried to discretely obscure from airport security personnel for fear I would be labeled a dangerous fellow.] I have no idea what it means, but it scares the hell out of me.

Captivating read. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched history of one of the most devastating events in human history. Could not put it down!

Chegou rápido, embora a previsão da Amazon é meio pessimista e te deixa desanimado. Já estou acabando a leitura, e é perfeita.

A bit slow at first, but got there eventually. Plenty of good insight into how the disease spread across Europe and the devastation it caused.

For example: "Yersin, a Somerset Maugham-ish figure... In a film about the race to identify Y. pestis, Leslie Howard would have played Yersin"I didn't bother looking up Somerset Maugham, but I looked up Leslie Howard - a British actor from the born in 1893... the book is full of these obscure references

John Kelly has produced a great account of the first time the Black Death reached Europe in 1347, taking the reader through the historical events chronologically, starting in Caffa. This way he introduces main historical sources and the events behind them, and in his describing the people and locations on the way. From Sicily to Italian coastal towns, the Tuscan cities, France with Marsaile and it's papal court at Avignon, Switzerland & the Holy Roman Empire with it's associated anti-jewish pogroms, and the arrival of the plague in England and Ireland we follow in the footsteps of this neverbefore seen disease.Kelly's account is accesible for the lay-reader, giving background and particularities in an engaging voice, as well as for the historian who wants to venture into a new field. He doesn't just describe the people and places, but also explains the historical debate about the origin of the disease, and explains the thoughts of the 'plague deniers', who believe the medieval plague of 1347 to have been a different disease then the later Black Death caused by Yrsinia Pestis.I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in this subject matter.

Interessante pô maneirinho