Book review: Epidemics and society from the black death to the presen

By: Mohammad Azmi Ahmad Hamaydeh

“I did feel like we were threatened as a world society,” said Frank Snowden. This is what pushed him to write and publish his book “Epidemics and society- from the Black Death to the present”, published in October of 2020 during the height of fear and panic.

Frank Snowden, a Yale historian, with fields of interest extending from fascism, social history, and history of medicine, has more than five books under his name; the most recent one being “Epidemics and society- from the black death to the present.”

Having contracted the virus himself, the book gathered much more authenticity, authenticity felt by both readers and critics alike.

The book discusses how the pandemic has always and continues to shape society as much as war or politics. People have given the virus a soul and have taken every possible step to try to escape it, or for people to at least feel protected.

Comparisons between old disease and new disease are made to describe how people's behavior changed over time to give nuance. It discusses how the spread of information right now can feed many truths, and can also feed many lies, making it seem like ignorance is sometimes bliss.

The book rose in popularity quickly. Critics were astonished by how much information lies in the book, and how important it is that everyone must take some time to educate themselves on the current pandemic and the events that may follow.

Source: Newyorker

“Frank Snowden’s new textbook, Epidemics, and Society should be added to the shelf of volumes on pernicious pestilences. Encyclopedic in scope, comprehensive in coverage, and highly readable, it provides a kind of course of study for anyone curious to learn more about the general subject. And that was the author’s intent,” said Peter Rose, an employee of the Yale press.

Another angle adopted by this book also speaks to the readers about how leaders have constantly failed to contain pandemics but would rather preserve economic standings- a chrematistic that remains unchanged through different times of the pandemic.

“In an updated introduction to his book, Snowden traces a comparable arrogance among our own leaders, who have allowed global inequalities to feed the illusion that infectious diseases, old and new, are a thing of the past. As we enter the next phase of this pandemic, it is worth keeping in mind that in 2014, for example, more people were sick with TB than ever before, one critic wrote.

“One of the most depressing realizations in reading this necessary and compelling book is that almost every line of it would be news to Donald J. Trump: the terrible decades and centuries in the shadow of the bubonic plague; the desperate smallpox, cholera, typhoid, and polio epidemics; and the enormous advances in health care achieved through hygiene, vaccination, and antibiotics.

All this cumulative, hard-won wisdom - the triumphs of Edward Jenner and Joseph Lister and Alexander Fleming and Florence Nightingale and Jonas Salk in convincing governments of the possibilities of their science - has been erased from history by a president who believes that injections of disinfectants might provide a novel cure,” Tim Adams, a writer for The Guardian, thoughtfully articulates.

The book is not much written around societal and medical theories but is rather riddled with facts and information that help portray why we as humans will evolve, but will never change in times of hardship, and how we are controlled by a false sense of security.

This book must be read by all who truly wish to educate themselves on how the history of pandemics have shaped the way we deal with Covid and how different parts of society function in its wake - for example, leaders will always have an agenda that they will follow, no matter the consequences.