John M. Barry was the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies of Sciences Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, and he advised the Bush and Obama White Houses on pandemic preparedness and response. He is an award-winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author whose books have also involved him in policy making. The National Academies of Science named The Great Influenza the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine.
By John M. Barry
“Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.” -Bill Gates
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.
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By David O. White, Macfarlane Burnet
This provides the reader with the background to understand what happens when a pathogen invades both an individual and a society. It’s an absolutely brilliant book by a Nobel laureate scientist, one of my all-time favorites on any subject.
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By Barbara Wertheim Tuchman
Tuchman is a great writer and a great historian who truly does make the past, and in this case a century and a plague, come alive. It is set in Europe during the 14th century and follows the life of a French nobleman as Europe endures the Black Plague, the Hundred Years’ War, the Papal Schism, and so much more.
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By Albert Camus
Here’s a book by another Nobel laureate, though this time for literature. A classic study of individuals and stress. Set during the 1940s it is about a plague sweeping through the French Algerian city of Oran.
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By Daniel Defoe
This is a novel so good it’s often mistaken for an actual journal. A classic by the author of Robinson Crusoe about one man’s experiences in the year 1665 when the bubonic plague strikes the city of London.
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By Giovanni Boccaccio
This is a classic among classics. It's essentially a collection of stories-- so you can read one or a few at a time and not lose continuity-- told by a group of people seeking refuge from the plague, has direct relevance today to our experience with covid, and offers insight into a different world. Interesting to compare with Tuchman's A Distant Mirror.
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