Pathogenesis
A History of the World in Eight Plagues
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4.2 • 43 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “gripping” (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs
“Superbly written . . . Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.”—The Times (U.K.)
According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world’s major religions.
By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Revisiting the theme of William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples (1976), sociologist and public health scholar Kennedy debuts with a virtuoso analysis of the fallout from encounters between deadly viral and bacterial pathogens and human populations that lacked immunity. Looking back to prehistory, he argues that Homo sapiens supplanted Eurasian Neanderthals 40,000 years ago by virtue of pathogens they brought from Africa, not superior intelligence. Elsewhere, he contends that epidemics depopulated the Roman Empire and led to the rise of Christianity and Islam, while the Black Death initiated Britain's transition from feudalism to capitalism. A smallpox epidemic allowed Hernan Cortés to conquer the immunologically naive Aztec Empire in 1520, but Africa's endemic malaria killed Europeans so quickly that they were unable to colonize the continent until quinine became available in the 19th century. And while modern sanitation and medicine have triumphed over cholera and other pathogens, Covid-19 highlighted the "stark inequalities" that still result in millions of poor and marginalized people dying each year from preventable infections. Though there's a one-size-fits-all aspect to Kennedy's thesis that disease-bearing microbes are responsible for the modern world, he marshals a wealth of surprising scholarship in lucid and succinct prose. The result is a fascinating look at history from the perspective of its tiniest protagonists.
Customer Reviews
Looking at History through a Microscope . . .
What an interesting view of history. Mr. Kennedy's book makes sense, is meticulously referenced with informational notes at the end of most chapters, and myriad end notes with references at the end of the book. I suggest looking into them as they offer a lot of explanation and clarity. I'm not a fan of his sentence structure, but that’s only slightly off-putting at times, generally when he's posing questions—another writing style I’m not fond of: minor burps. That bacteria and viruses have had such an influence on human life—even human evolution, amazing! This book changed my understanding of the history of religion, wars, evolution, economies—microbes have brought about change in practically every important aspect of our lives. As an American reader, I was interested in this book's having been written by a Brit and history shown through a different lens—seeing American history through different eyes, including our Civil War, our Revolutionary War, Trump's response to COVID, colonization of islands and lands, other wars we've been involved in gives one pause to think. I feel much more informed than I was before reading this book. As a nurse, I’ve always been interested in microbes, having once once written an extra credit essay for a biology test suggesting the possibility that viruses may be a higher “life” form precisely because they aren’t alive. Looks like I may have been right.