The Great Influenza
The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
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4.3 • 445 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1918, a plague swept across the world virtually without warning, killing healthy young adults as well as vulnerable infants and the elderly. Hospitals and morgues were quickly overwhelmed; in Philadelphia, 4,597 people died in one week alone and bodies piled up on the streets to be carted off to mass graves. But this was not the dreaded Black Death it was "only influenza." In this sweeping history, Barry (Rising Tide) explores how the deadly confluence of biology (a swiftly mutating flu virus that can pass between animals and humans) and politics (President Wilson's all-out war effort in WWI) created conditions in which the virus thrived, killing more than 50 million worldwide and perhaps as many as 100 million in just a year. Overcrowded military camps and wide-ranging troop deployments allowed the highly contagious flu to spread quickly; transport ships became "floating caskets." Yet the U.S. government refused to shift priorities away from the war and, in effect, ignored the crisis. Shortages of doctors and nurses hurt military and civilian populations alike, and the ineptitude of public health officials exacerbated the death toll. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit municipality in the U.S., "the entire city government had done nothing" to either contain the disease or assist afflicted families. Instead, official lies and misinformation, Barry argues, created a climate of "fear... threatened to break the society apart." Barry captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. Flu shots are widely available today because of their heroic efforts, yet we remain vulnerable to a virus that can mutate to a deadly strain without warning. Society's ability to survive another devastating flu pandemic, Barry argues, is as much a political question as a medical one.
Customer Reviews
The Great Influenza
Well written, interesting and historically informative.
The Great Influenza
The description of the activity of the virus attacking human cells and tissue is the best I have ever read, an easy jump from that to understanding the devisation of this virus on the population. The shame associated with the response to this disaster still lingers in the Medical Community of Philadelphia . I went to Medical School in Philadelephis in the 60’s, some of my professors were involved in fighting the disease yet never mentioned the events covered in this excellent work.
The Great Influenza
A great wealth of background historical information put so much of the events of the epidemic into perspective. Most interesting was that the outcome was so horrible because people in positions of authority both ignored the advice of scientists and medical professionals and lied over and over to the public about the dangers of the disease.
The comparisons between the influenza epidemic of 1918 and the Covid pandemic of 2019 show a frightening similarity. If more people would read and learn from this history, civilization just might prevent future outbreaks from causing such devastation.