Many years ago– probably 50 or so– I read Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser at my father’s suggestion. Mr. Zinsser was a biologist who made significant contributions to our knowledge of typhus. That book, published in 1935, really opened my eyes to the impact that diseases have had on the history of the world.
I just finished reading Pathogenesis, A History of the World in Eight Plagues, by Jonathan Kennedy. In many ways it is an update to a book written by William McNeill titled Plagues and Peoples, published in 1976. (I have not read McNeill’s book.) Since that time the technology used to investigate past pathogens has radically improved and has enabled Kennedy to describe the impact that diseases have had on the arc of human history with far greater detail and precision.
The scope of the book is breathtaking. Mr. Kennedy achieves nothing less than a complete rewriting of much of history, from the paleolithic to the present. The book is bursting with detail, it is quite well written, and much of it reads like a thriller.
Why did Homo sapiens replace Neanderthals and Denisovans throughout Europe? Answer: disease.
Why are the people of Europe descended from three distinct population groups– Western Hunter-gatherers with dark skin, dark hair, and light eyes; Neolithic European farmers with olive skin and dark hair who moved into the region about 9,000 years ago; and Steppe Herders, who were tall, light skinned, and fair haired and who swept across Europe about 5,000 years ago? Answer: disease.
Why did the Athenians lose the Peloponnesian War to the Spartans and thereby pave the way for Philip of Macedon to conquer all of Greece? Answer: disease.
Why did the Roman empire come crashing down? Answer: disease.
Why did capitalism replace feudalism in England and in no other European society? Answer: disease.
Why were Europeans able to conquer the powerful cultures of the Aztecs, the Incas, and Native American Indians, despite having vastly inferior numbers? Answer: disease.
Why did the European colonies that were established in North America and the Caribbean rely primarily on African slaves, rather than indentured servants from Europe for their plantations? Answer: disease.
Why were no European powers able to establish colonies in the interior of Africa until the 1870s? Answer: disease.
Why were the slaves of what is now Haiti able to free themselves from their overlords, the French, at a time when the French military was the mightiest in the world? Answer: disease.
It’s a powerful book. It forces you to confront the fact that much of what we think of as human directed events are in fact driven by other factors– especially disease. I was already somewhat prepared for the findings of this book through other readings. But it has a depth and breadth of scholarship that goes far beyond anything I was expecting. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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