Product Description

At the height of WWI, 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. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. John M Barry has written a new afterword for this edition that brings us up to speed on the terrible threat of the avian flu and suggests ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #108672 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 546 pages

About the Author
John M Barry is the author of four previous books, including the highly acclaimed and award-winning Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

Customer Reviews

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague
This is a really impressive book that took seven years to write--not only covering the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic, but also how scientists tackle problems at the bench, as well as the personalities behind the rise of American medicine. As Mike Davis says in "The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu," Barry has written the best book on the influenza pandemic of 1918.

Although the book is more than 500 pages, it reads more like a novel than a study in medical history. Given the increasing likelihood of another influenza pandemic from the H5N1 strain of avian flu, it is helpful to see how the 1918 pandemic began in Kansas and spread thoughout the world. There is a careful explanation of how viruses develop and spread, but no previous knowledge is assumed.

Barry is especially good on the influence of World War I in stopping national governments from being open about how the flu was killing more people than the fighting. The only reason why we call the 1918 pandemic, "the Spanish flu" is because Spain was the only country that wasn't censoring the importance of the flu. Everywhere else it was "unpatriotic" to be honest. What emerges is the importance of public health authorities being honest or else a situation is created where the public does not trust the government--and rightly so.

As the Co-ordinator of Avian Flu Action (www.avianfluaction.org) I found this book especially helpful in setting out the mistakes that were made in the last great flu pandemic, so that hopefully they will not be made again. As Barry points out: "Every expert on influenza agrees that the ability of the influenza virus to reassort genes means that another pandemic not only can happen. It almost certainly will happen"(p.449).

Reading this book will give you a good understanding of what a flu pandemic is, and how to react if another one hits us.

The book on the great influenza pandemic of 1918
In 1918, the world was hit with the emergence of a new and deadly disease, one that struck down vast multitudes, and killed many - often killing young adults in the prime of life. But, this was not a wholly new disease; it was merely a variation on that perennial nuisance the flu! In a 24 week period, this disease killed more people than AIDS has killed in the last 24 years. This is the story of the last great and deadly pandemic to sweep the world, the Influenza of 1918.

This is a good thick book, one in which the author goes to great lengths to give the reader a good grasp on the issues and people involved - heck, the 1918 pandemic isn't even referenced until chapter six, and serious discussion of it doesn't begin until chapter fourteen! But, that said, the author does give the reader an excellent understanding into what happened in 1918 - what happened and why, what it meant to subsequent history (did American President Wilson contract that disease, and did it affect the Versailles peace process?), and what it means to us today.

Yes, if you are interested in the great influenza pandemic of 1918, then I would say that this is the book for you. It has all of the information you could want, and it presents it in an interesting, if not gripping, manner. I highly recommend this book!

Impressive, USA orientated, very detailed
This is an impressive piece of scholarship, but I have to admit skimming many of the pages as I found the book over-burdened with detail. The book would, I think, interest US readers more than others as the story is largely told from that country's perspective and all the main medical/scientific players worked in the USA. Many chapters are devoted to the biographies of these workers, preceded by the history of medicine from Aristotle culminating in the blossoming of medical training in the USA. I felt I had to plough through hundreds of pages of background material before the "Epic" started. There is a tremendous amount of information in the book, not just historical/biographical, but also very detailed descriptions of the evolution, replication and categorization of viruses; and how vaccines were finally produced.

If I appear critical of the book, that is not my intention, I'm just warning people who might want to know about the 1918 flu epidemic unburdened by so much background material.