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New Light on the Black Death

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"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." To that

we should add, that those who do not understand the past, though they may remember it,

are still at risk of repeating it. This book is an attempt to help us

understand what may have caused the Black Plague. And in so doing, we might

find out that the avoidance of a repeat may depend on a crew of folks whom you

probably least expect.

If the Black Plague and other previous plagues were merely diseases spread

by rats, why are there anomalous amounts of ammonia and nitrates

concentrated in the ice cores at depths that correspond to AD 1348, 1014,

626, 539 and 430 B.C. ? And why are there sharp climatological events in

the Dendrochronological(tree ring) record at many of these dates? What did

ancient authors try to tell us about these events? Which of these authors

credibility blossoms in the light of new evidence and which of them wilt?

What could the Siberian (Tunguska) atmospheric explosion in 1908 have to do

with understanding a great plague 600 years earlier?

If you read this book, you will be amazed at the detective work that must

have been required to write it. And you will be fortunate to have been "tipped off"

to a broader subject that will change the way we view the last 10,000 years of

human history. That subject is the interaction between the Earth and other

debris careening through our solar system in the forms of comets and

near-earth asteroids. If Mike Baillie is right, a great plague event might

eventually be prevented not by medical science, but by rocket science -

in the form of asteroid interdiction. The amount of evidence for asteroid/comet impacts

on the earth in the past five or ten thousand years, is rapidly increasing

and this ground-based (geological and historical) evidence suggests that the

frequencies of significant impacts on the Earth might be greater than astronomers

currently expect on the basis of asteroid population statistics alone.

If knowledge and understanding of history can help us avoid future disasters,

it is because of authors like Mike Baillie and books just like this one.

The Black Death was the infamous disaster event that I have studied in college a few years ago. During my studies, I have focused so much on the primary documents as well on the secondary sources on how such disaster came to be, seeing that it killed off two-third of the population and the after-effects. But, never once have I thought of the shocking connection between the comet impact and the event of Black Death of 1347 as I have just read this book by Mike Baillie, which profoundly changed my perspective.

I have been read quite few books and articles on the Black Death and came to learn, as "accepted" by scientific community, that the Black Death was spread by black rats (rattus rattus) from Asia area to Europe. But, Baillie questioned that notion and asked what if that Black Death was never a bubonic plague as everyone believed it was.

In "New Light on the Black Death," Baillie provided intriguing evidence, such as tree-rings, ice cores, as well the contemporary accounts to bring home the new perspective: that Black Death was likely caused by a comet impact. Not only he provided an evidence for the plague of 1348/9, but he also brings to attention of the previous events, such as the Justinian plague of AD 542 and the plague of Athens in AD 430.

Once again, this book certainly changed my perspective of the Black Death, questioned everything I have ever studied on the subject. Not only does this book question my knowledge on the subject, but it certainly made me ponder on the future cosmic disasters: "Will there be the next Black Death?"

Baillie's book is filled with fascinating and shocking scientific data. It consisted only 19 chapters, with roughly 205 pages as it's not very long book, but it certainly enthralled me to read it with a careful attention. And, this book is a truly recommended.

Unless you are a history buff specializing in pandemics you may well be thinking, "why would I care about a book on the Black Death?" I thought the same thing, until I read it at the recommendation of a friend. What a great read!

Not only did I learn a lot about the ways in which historical data is gathered from tree rings and ice core samples, Baillie relates all of that to world wide mythology in a way that, by the end of the book, starts making complete sense in a way it never did before. Suddenly, weird stories about heroes morphing into bizarre creatures in Ireland and dragons fighting battles in the air in China not only made sense but were pretty clearly different culture's ways of describing the same events.

In terms of historical studies, that is already interesting enough. The core of the book, however, is almost mind blowing. The point of it is this: not only was the Black Death likely due to the explosion of a comet or cometary fragment in Earth's atmosphere, but that these things likely happen far more frequently than anyone has imagined and on a fairly regular basis.

To prove to yourself that his hypothesis is at least feasible, do a search on the word "fireball" and see just how many are reported. You might notice something interesting in what you find. Not only are there far more sightings of these things that you'd think, they are on the increase! In other words, it looks as if we are heading into a danger zone in space much like during the time of the Black Death and several other times in history that have been probably incorrectly seen as pandemics.

One other point that is not explicitly made in the book but that bears thinking about is the effect on our weather of all of the dust that is brought in by these fireballs. How much of global warming is due to this rather than alleged greenhouse gases? Baillie's research clearly shows global climate change during these danger times in the past. Tree growth slowed across the globe just prior to the Black Death and many other such events.

An must read for both its historical significance and for bringing new data to present debates. I loved this book!

This is a scientific book that reads like a detective novel. For the first time, Baillie takes a cross-disciplinary approach to study what happened during the Black Death in Europe in the 14th century. A large amount of evidence is gathered from diverse fields of studies such as tree ring, ice core to mythology to present a convincing case that what caused the Black Death was not at all what the consensus has taken it to be. Rather than the bubonic plague, Baillie shows that the event that killed up to half Europe's population was caused by toxic substances released by cometary impacts from space.

"Why should I care about what caused the Black Death?," you may ask. It is because what happened in the past may well happen in our future. Baillie shows in the book that the Black Death is not just an isolated event but part of a series of cataclysms caused by comets. And he is but one of the warning voices about this danger facing humanity. According to new research, notably by Victor Clube in The Cosmic Winter, the probability of cometary impact in a century period is very high. An example of it being the Tunguska impact at the early 20th century. Imagine what the effect would have been if that comet had landed on a city instead of a remote place.

So I would highly recommend this book to everyone to learn more about this subject. Acquiring knowledge is the first step in dealing with any threat, especially one with global implication like this. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

I think that this book is a very fine book indeed! I believe that Dr. Baillie has proposed an intriguing and very plausible theory for what took place both at the time of the Black Death 600 to 700 years ago and also another lesser known plague that took place in the middle of the 6th century A.D. The premise that is at the heart of Dr. Baillie's thesis is that the plagues spread so rapidly so as to exclude the present most popular idea of a rat spread event. Rather, the idea he favours is a far more rapid air borne cause.

This well written account of the world wide disaster was written by a professor emeritus. Thus it must be considered from a high vantage point. The evidence presented (with footnotes) is overwhelming. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons, a known substance on comets, was the agent that poisoned people across China and Europe. Tree rings, ice cores and text all point to this as the only solution. No, it wasn't the bubonic plague and rats, rather it was debris (highly poisonous HCN etc) from a known comet that broght the black plague and previous plagues to earth.

It is interesting to note that historians would rather rearrange facts to make them fit their theories, and nothing points it out like what happened in explaining the Black Death. Rather than take what was being said by those who experienced at face value, those who were studying this seemed to think that these people just simply couldn't have known what they were talking about.

Now, Baillie has shown with tree ring and ice core samples just how wrong the historians got it. And this is not a dry read. It is put in fairly plain language for all to understand.

One might ask just why the historians would not even look at the fact that comets may have been to blame for the plague, when everyone who wrote about it mentioned the fire from the skies, rain of fire, fiery snow, bad air.....the list is endless.

These are things that we should learn about so that in the event that it should happen again, we won't be unprepared and will know what is actually happening.

It is a very interesting read.