Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease [Hardcover]

Wendy Orent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2004

Plague is the greatest killer in human history, though it has only emerged occasionally, most famously in Justinian Rome and medieval Europe. Normally, it moves sluggishly from animal reservoirs into human populations, and it shows little capacity for epidemic spread. Yet under the right circumstances, it is the single most dangerous germ on the planet. Orent reveals how Soviet scientists created genetically-altered forms of this terrible affliction, knowing exactly how to convert plague into a deadly weapon. She shows how scientists are still unable to defend against it, and how plague could be visited upon humanity again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As journalist Orent shows, what is called the plague—a killer of millions throughout the centuries—is several different diseases, some spread by animals, others by humans. Luckily, the Black Death, as the plague was called in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, "never became a permanent human specialist, like smallpox," in part, she surmises, because it was too virulent to survive for long. But when Orent moves on to the present and future of the plague, she's treading on uncertain ground. With the help of a former Soviet bioweapons scientist, Igor Domaradskij, whose memoirs she's edited, she throws the spotlight on the Soviet development of strains of the plague. The frightening thing, she notes, is that some of these strains can no longer be accounted for. Whether or not that is something that should be feared is unclear: American experts she quotes argue that these viruses are no longer major threats to create an epidemic. But she contends that while not as deadly as anthrax, the strains of the plague created in the former Soviet Union—or other strains of the disease that might be antibiotic resistant—are indeed something to worry about. Not so long ago, a book like this might have seemed like fear mongering. In the post–September 11 world, a plague outbreak may still be unlikely, but many readers will find this a subject deserving further investigation.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Science journalist Orent's sweeping history of Yersinia pestis begins and ends in Russia. As the Soviet Union, Russia ran the world's largest bioweapons program, concentrated on making plague more virulent and more invincible to antiplague agents. The U.S., which ended bioweapons research during the Nixon administration, doesn't take plague as seriously as Russia but hasn't had Russia's experience with it. Plague's homeland is Mongolia and the adjacent north and west; it spread through Asia to Europe and Africa from there, and there it still flares, killing entire families and tiny communities before the most effective plague prophylaxis, quarantine, contains it. Three times plague waxed pandemic, and Orent charts its course and effects under the sixth-century Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose attempted revival of the Roman empire it quashed; in the mid-fourteenth century, devastating Europe before subsiding in waves extending to the eighteenth century; and in 1894 to 1920, especially in China, during which investigators discovered much of what is definitely known about it. Later the key to plague's dangerousness was ascertained: it disarms immune response. By the time its victim feels sick, the "liver, spleen, and lymph glands . . . are tissues of plague, plague bacteria in almost pure culture." Back at last to Russia, where, more than any stockpiled plague weapons, by now probably impotent, the knowledge of former bioweapons scientists is very much on the market. Be afraid, and remember quarantine. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743236858
• ISBN-13: 978-0743236850
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,002,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plague by Wendy Orent, July 19, 2004

By 

Alan A. Fisher "Alan A. Fisher, Membership Ch... (Rockville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease (Hardcover)

One of the most difficult and important talents for a scientist is to communicate difficult material in an understandable way. Dr. Orent has an astounding ability to communicate complex material coherently enough for a nonspecialist to understand. She has made sense of an enormous amount of plague history: why did specific plague eruptions throughout history emerge? Why did some eruptions self destruct while others kept going for many years? Why did some plague eruptions seem to require transmission through rats and rat fleas while others transmitted directly from human to human? Why do researchers in some countries consider plague virtually always fatal while researchers in some other countries consider it primarily a disease of rodents with little potential for human infection?

Dr. Orent traveled as far as Russia to meet with leading plague researchers (and biological terrorists) in the process of preparing this book.

I had the pleasure of discussing plague with Dr. Orent a couple of years ago when she was in Maryland doing research for the work. At the time I was stuck in the mind set from my days in college, when we learned that plague died down in Europe when the brown rats (essentially imune to plague) forced out the black rats (vulnerable to plague). While Dr. Orent told me that some forms of plague transmitted directly from human to human, the horror of the situation did not come through until I read her very convincing book.

I strongly recommend this book, one of the finest nonfiction books I have read in many years. As an experienced author, it takes a lot for an author to impress me with writing ability. Based on this book, Dr. Orent is one of the finest pure writers I have encountered in many years -- as well as an excellent scientist.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very impressive, January 20, 2011

By 

C. J. Thompson "Arctic John" (Pond Inlet, Nunavut Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease (Hardcover)

Ms Orent has a nice, light prose style and if she were to tackle a subject in which she has some actual expertise I would probably enjoy her writing much more. However, in this book I was singularly unimpressed with her research and analysis. It rather seems to me that she has, in the fashion of a yellow journalist, chosen a topic guaranteed to arouse ones fears and morbid interest and then cherry-picked the scientific data to back up a preformed conclusion whilst ignoring anything that doesn't fit.

Ms Orent has taken the position that the plague, either in its pneumonic or bubonic form, has made repeated visitations (most notably in the three pandemics which include the medieval black death) and that it's virulence and lethality has varied from time to time and place to place. She asks, and then attempts to answer, why this may be so but then neglects to actually consider that one of her basic premises is false and that different pandemics were caused by very different pathogens.

In advancing her contention, Ms Orent several times refers to 'many scientists' or 'some scientists' who support her view but when one reads the book we learn that this really only refers to a handful of ex-soviet microbiologists whose ideas are far from main-stream. In the apparent spirit of fairness, Ms Orent mentions some western experts in the field who categorically dispute the Russian scientists but then she leaves it at that; there is never any real discussion as to the basis on which these experts reject her thesis nor any counter-argument in response. Likewise, Ms Orent also briefly mentions Graham Twigg's important The Black Death: A Biological Reappraisal, and the research of Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan, but then dismisses out of hand their central (and very convincing conclusion) that the famous Black Death was not the Bubonic Plague in any form. Ms Orent addresses none of the arguments raised by these people. Scott and Duncan, for example point to obviously different incubation and latency periods between the pathogen which caused the Black Death and plague-causing Yersinia Pestis but Ms Orent mentions this issue not at all. Id she unaware of this very important part of the puzzle or did she just choose to ignore an uncomfortable counter-argument? Neither choice speaks very highly of Ms Orent as a science writer to my mind.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting Read, July 12, 2008

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MM in NYC (New York City, NY, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease (Hardcover)

It was such an interesting subject and one that I previously didn't know much about. For me, I found the older history more intriguing than that of the Soviet portion so after the first few chapters, I flew through the rest of the book.

Nicely written and provides great visualizations.

This book can provide great topics of discussion with friends and book club members.