Customer Reviews

Plagues and Peoples

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Plagues and Peoples is an informative and very readable summary of the relationship between mankind and disease. The author consistently views disease as a parasite and describes the history of plagues in terms of a parasite interacting with a host population. The parasite and the host interact and, over time, reach an equilibrium within the population that allows the both the parasite and the host to survive.
The most interesting feature of the book is his portrayal of mankind not only as a host, but also as a parasite himself. He uses the term macroparasite to describe human institutions and phenomena that also drain energy and resources from producers. For example, very high taxes or rents, Medieval labor laws and practices, war, and forced migration all drain communities and nations as surely as disease. He provides excellent, while still brief, commentary on the interaction between microparasites and macroparasites and the resultant depopulation of certain areas during certain periods. One might argue that this is not a newly observed correlation, but it has certainly never been explained as clearly and succintly as it is done here.
McNeill covers a range of topics. There is, of course, discussion of the plague and mankinds response to it. There us also commentary on leprosy. Why for example, was leprosy, so common in Western Europe and the Middle East in biblical times, to dissapear in the Middle Ages. ( The answer is not what you think. ) Did syphillis originate in the Americas ? If so it may have been the Aztecs' revenge on the conquistadors. Why are there childhood diseases ?
McNeill's arguements are somtimes intuitive and are, in some cases, based on limited data, especially when he examines the history of disease in Asia and India. However, he is careful to couch his observations in limited terms and clearly points out the limitations of the data. I found this to be a refreshing break from, for example, Guns, Germs and Steel, where the author used very limited data to draw absolute conclusions.
The new introduction ( the book was first publised in 1986 )has an alternate viewpoint on AIDS. He argues that, at the moment, AIDS as an epidemic does not rank among the great killers of mankind such as the plague. He draws some interesting parallels between the current AIDS epidemic and the historical spread of syphillis. I am not sure if I agree with his position, but it was interesting to hear something other than the usual end of the world scenario that often comes out of discussions of AIDS.

History can be written from two major vantage points. From the top of a mountain, with broad brush strokes, showing the major streams and landmarks, the BIG picture. Spenser and Toynbee are such historians, so is this book. The other view is from the trenches, the pieces, the small connections that we find so fascinating and absorbing. I believe that the big picture view of this book is a result of how it came into being as an elaboration of a single constellation of ideas that the author discovered while working on _The Rise of the West_, he found they interesting and continued to build the structure around these ideas in this book.

The book is about a collection of related ideas:
Parasitism--as he defines two types macro and micro.
Micro is the form we are familiar with as disease, the times viruses, bacteria, protozoan begin to use us as their energy and food source, to our consternation. He further defines two flavors: epidemic and endemic. Epidemic is the form in bubonic plague that swept Europe for 500 years at regular intervals. endemic is the idea of a parasitic form like the liver flukes that effect irrigated agriculture the world over, or like the civilized childhood diseases that effect the body politic like measles, mumps, smallpox.
Macroparasitism is this author's contribution to the discussion, unique to him as far as i know. Those other human's that prey on the weaker, less organized, less mobile etc. Epidemic macro are the Mongols(which are the topic of what i think is the best chapter in the book) or those horseman like in the movie the "Seventh Samari" who sweep out of the steppes or mountains to seize the harvest. Endemic macro are the priests, kings, emperors, tax farmers, etc who take the hard earned food from the producers without adequate recompense.
Using these ideas he ventures to paint those broad strokes, those vistas in history to show how the major currents, the big pieces fit. To this end the book is very well done, always absorbing, always enough detail to support but not to overwhelm the reader. Yet pithy and curiosity arousing enough to drive you to look into his sources, the real mark of good history.
I was pleased enough to get _Rise of the West_ and will start it next.
thanks for reading the review, i hope you get as much out of the book as did i.
richard williams

This is one of those handful of books that will change the way you look at our world. History will never seem quite the same when you finish.
Several earlier reviewers have done a great job of summarizing and analyzing the book. It is unfortunate that this book was given as a high school assignment, and then the students were asked to review it on Amazon. Is it any wonder they gave it 2 or 3 stars, and said it was difficult to understand? Most 15-year-olds do not have the background to fully appreciate this type of work, and unfortunately their reviews skew the book's rating.

If you've been enjoying the rash of viral/epidemiological titles such as "Hot Zone", "The Coming Plague" or "Deadly Feasts", you'll find a real gem in "Plagues and Peoples". William McNeill, an author with impeccable credentials, is IMHO, the Marshall McCluhan of epidemiological biology. Like McCluhan, he published this work decades before the subject matter became mainstream. He also comes at the topics he investigates with a fresh and brain-stretching approach.

McNeill presents a history of mankind where every civilization is surrounded by a disease 'gradient'. These gradients interact with one another as one of the significant factors in inter-cultural dominance and expansion. The conquest of the New World takes on a new look as McNeill describes the impact of the European disease gradient on a defenseless North America. He contrasts this with the impact of the African disease gradient on Europeans.

Some of McNeills ideas, such as his analogies between micro-parasites (diseases, bugs, etc.) and macro-parasites (governments, barbarians, raiders, etc.) are still fresh and fascinating. Consider his idea that we accept a government as a low-level parasite so that we minimize the impact of rogue parasites like raiders and such in the same way we allow our bodies to be colonized by benign parasites like E.Coli so that we have fewer niches available to rouge germs like staph and strep. This book is filled with exciting ideas like this.

All in all, the book is very readable, adds greatly to any view of history and creates an excellent foundation for the recent titles in this area.

I read this book for a history class and loved it. The thesis was interesting, the ideas well-supported, and the examples fascinating. McNeill writes clearly, includes the perfect amount of detail and factual support, and avoids esotericism. His claims, like components of a mathematic or scientific theory, complement one another in a convincing and cohesive fashion such that by the end of the book, one cannot help but be at least partially convinced of the important relationship between paracitism and human civilization throughout history. Plagues and Peoples is truly legitimate, fascinating and innovative. For those who have any interest in history, anthropology, sociology, biology, or a plethora of other fields, as well as for any who merely appreciate interesting analytical thought and are looking for a good read, this book is really one you won't want to miss.

This is one of a very tiny number of books which I have bought in bulk and distributed to friends and colleagues. Although the prose style can be unnecessarily turgid and academic and will win no prizes, the ideas are so stimulating intellectually that one gradually ceases to notice the style. McNeill's central thesis, both original and plausible, allows one to review the entire history of civilization in a new light and to make testable and almost always correct predictions. Few books have the ability to so change one's view of history. I first read this book many years ago and it has held up well. Read and ponder. It may change your world view.

_Plagues and Peoples_ by William H. McNeill is an absolutely brilliant work of history; though originally published in 1977 it is still insightful and influential. Just as Brian Fagan in _The Long Summer_ viewed human history through the prism of climatic change, McNeill in this work showed how the world got to be the way it is in large part thanks to disease. How the various communities of humans in the world came to an accommodation with those infectious diseases that were able to reach epidemic proportions, when and whether or not a disease went from a being epidemic to endemic (milder, generally a childhood disease) in a given population, was a major factor in world history and one that was often overlooked. According to McNeill, for too long the role of infectious disease in world history has not been properly taken into account, historians for many decades viewing epidemics as "accidents" and infection (and fear of infection) often having been treated as "unpredictable" and "incomprehensible," as disease "spoiled the web of interpretation and explanation" that historians used to understand the human experience. McNeill sought to chronicle man's history with infectious disease and the far-reaching consequences that resulted when contacts across disease boundaries allowed a new infection to invade a population that had no acquired immunity to its effects. The contemporary global diffusion of childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, and until recently smallpox took thousands of years, a history well covered in this book.

It was due to a near lack of disease that humanity was able to multiple vastly between 40,000 and 10,000 B.C; as humans left the tropical environment of Africa, it left behind not only diseases that were endemic to the environment that had kept mankind in check but additionally moved into non-tropical environments that were not as benign for many parasites (McNeill often referred to infectious diseases as microparasites or simply parasites). The biological checks on humankind in sub-Saharan Africa were absent in temperate and northern climates, with lower temperatures and oftentimes drier conditions inimical to many parasites and with fewer organisms present to become possible parasites.

Unfortunately, humanity began to reverse this relative lack of disease with the advent of agriculture. By multiplying a restricted number of species - both animal and human- dense concentrations of potential food for parasites were created. Weed species arose to fill in the gaps created by such huge distortions in normal ecological systems. Many weeds - such as plant weeds and mice - were relatively easy to control, but microorganisms for centuries defied understanding and control. Most if not all of these microorganisms jumped to humans from livestock, and as parasites that pass directly from human to human with no intermediate host and indeed cannot survive without a large pool of non-immune humans, are "rank newcomers" in terms of the evolution of life on Earth. These diseases are the hallmarks of civilization.

The "domestication" of disease that occurred between 1300 and 1700 was a major landmark in world history, the direct result of two great transportation revolutions, one on land initiated by the Mongols and one on sea initiated by the Europeans during the age of exploration. When diseases first appear they are often spectacularly fatal, so lethal that it is possible for a microorganism to die out locally or even completely. Only after a period of time has passed can hosts and parasites adjust to one another, as the disease becomes a normal, endemic, more or less stable part of civilized society, a relationship less destructive to human hosts and more secure for the parasites, the latter able to count on a fresh supply of susceptible children to infect. Only with continued exposure can a population hope to develop this balance, as older individuals acquire immunity to the disease, reinforced by repeated exposure. Paradoxically, the more diseased a community, the less destructive are its epidemics, as adults are less likely to die, adults being more difficult to replace then infants and more damaging to society when they do perish. The more communications spread between Europe, North America, and the rest of the world, the smaller became the chance of any really devastating disease encounter. Only a radical mutation of an existing disease-causing organism or a new transfer from some other host to humans offered the possibility of any devastating epidemic as the world became one disease pool. Former separate disease pools, once separated by major geographical barriers - mountains, deserts, and oceans - converged into one disease pool as no large group of humans remained isolated from the rest of humanity by the end of the 19th century. To McNeill, a disease regime that he called modern existed only after "endemicity" spread throughout the world, first from port city to port city and then filtering into rural towns and the countryside. It was only after the endemicity of the major childhood diseases - their domestication - occurred that population growth really began to occur worldwide, that cities no longer needed a constant influx of rural migrants to replace large numbers of deaths each year (amazingly this only happened finally in 1900).

In addition to the history of disease and its effects other related topics are covered, such as the development of modern urban sewer systems (thanks in large part to cholera), how changes in agricultural practices affected disease propagation and spread (ironically while many diseases spread from cattle to humans it was the presence of large number of cattle that interrupted the chain of malarial transmission in much of Europe), the advent of modern doctors, acceptance of the germ theory of disease, and the development of vaccines. It was very interesting to learn that Edward Jenner did not invent vaccination; while his role was very important, smallpox inoculation at a folk level existed for hundreds of years in Arabia, North Africa, Persia, India, and China. Also the coverage of bubonic plague, leprosy, and syphilis is especially good in this book, the sections on it making for fascinating reading.

Upon my first reading of it, I realized what a novel approach to understanding history McNeill was proposing - that disease as much as any other event can be a major influence in historical change. It became the book that sparked an interest in the history of disease and epidemics that persists to this day.

While the scope of the book seems broad, McNeill focuses on three specific epidemics )the Plague of Athens, the Bubonic Plague of the 1340's and the introduction of smallpox to the Americas) and the subsequent impact of these epidemics on history. Due to its out-of-the-ordinary approach, this book is really geared towards the serious history-junkie ot the epidemiologically minded.

William H. McNeill's book "Plagues and Peoples" provides a thorough and original look at how epidemic diseases have shaped the course of human history. McNeill begins by describing the basic patterns of disease spread and how epidemics generally affect human population and activity, including war, religion, colonization, trade, politics, economics, etc. In a community previously unexposed to a particular disease, the effects can be devastating, killing off vast numbers. In communities where a disease has been encountered before, however, individuals who have been exposed usually have developed some level of resistance and either do not contract the disease again or, if they do, the symptoms tend to be far less severe.

In a community where a particular disease has established itself and attained endemic status (i.e. it is constantly present in the population, to some degree, as opposed to an epidemic that strikes and then disappears after a time), it becomes primarily a childhood disease, due to the fact that young children are usually the only ones in the population who have not been exposed and have therefore not had a chance to build any resistance. Examples of diseases that have attained such an endemic status include chicken pox, measles, and mumps, among others. McNeill also makes an interesting point that, for a disease to become endemic in a community, the population thereof must remain above a certain threshold number, below which there would not be a large enough body of unexposed, susceptible individuals to allow the continual perpetuation of the disease. For example, "the critical threshold below which [measles] cannot survive falls between 300,000 and 400,000 persons" (pg. 78).

One of the themes McNeill addresses throughout the book is the balance between what he calls "microparasitism" and "macroparasitism." The former refers to the parasitism of humans by infectious organisms such as bacteria, viruses, worms, etc. The latter is a term the author has applied to the way in which humans "parasitize" other humans via war, colonization, tax systems, etc. The book draws many parallels between the two, making it apparent that humans can have much the same effect on their own kind as do microscopic invaders.

McNeill works in chronological order from ancient times to modern day, describing different outbreaks of various diseases and the impacts they have had. There is little information on most of the older epidemics, simply due to the fact that few, if any, clearly written records exist from times long ago. In addition, it is often impossible to identify an ancient disease with a modern one based on available records. Though the term "plague" is assigned to many of the epidemics described in the Bible, it is unlikely that these outbreaks were instances of the bubonic plague that popularized the term centuries later. Once record-keeping became standard procedure, however, information was much easier to obtain.

A large section of the book is devoted to discussion of the infamous Black Death that first ravaged Europe from 1346-1350, and continued to return for repeat epidemics for several centuries afterward. McNeill explores the origins of this plague in other parts of the world and means by which the causal bacillus was transferred to European countries. Other diseases discussed include smallpox, chicken pox / shingles, measles, mumps, cholera, typhus, malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, leprosy, yaws, syphilis, poliomyelitis, and various parasites such as blood flukes. "Plagues and Peoples" was originally published in 1976, so the main body of the text does not include information on AIDS, but the updated 1998 edition has an added preface that briefly discusses the recent impact of this disease.

The last section of the book is devoted to the impacts modern medicine, since 1700, has had on the age-old patterns of epidemic infection. The two practices which seem to have had the greatest impact are quarantine and inoculation. Once people began to understand the nature of contagion between human beings (opposed to the previous "miasma" theory that bad vapors from dead bodies caused infection), quarantine measures became at least partially effective in stemming the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, sufferers of which were often sent off to sanatoriums. Inoculation, first put into widespread use to combat smallpox, allowed individuals to build up immunity by exposure to a small, non-lethal dose of a particular antigen.

Many of the conclusions McNeill draws from his examination of epidemic diseases are based largely on circumstantial evidence, due to the aforementioned lack of detailed documentation of early outbreaks, but they are all very logical and plausible, despite sometimes going against long-established ideas. All the hypotheses offered here are backed up by thorough research and clear cause-and-effect analysis based on the standard patterns epidemic infections tend to take. McNeill does not delve too deeply into the specific symptoms of each individual disease he covers, but rather spends his time discussing the broader, large-scale effects these epidemics had on human history. The book is fascinating, and is also very readable. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of disease.

Every high school history student knows that the Black Death swept through Europe, and that diseases like smallbox, measles and so on were decisive in allowing the colonization of the Americas. But these two statements while universally accepted, are generally left at that and the causes go unexplored.

This book is a very concise history of plagues and what built up to these two grim realities. McNeill goes much beyond these basics and provides in intricate details the events that allowed that to happen. What allowed these disease pools to eventually come into being? This book provides the details to the answer to that question from the early days of civilization in Mesopotamia to the effect that plague had on the periphery of the Roman and Chinese empires to the effect that the Mongols had in fully unifying this disease pool, and once a reality, the devasating effect that they had on the world.

In short, if you want to understand in fine detail the causes and events that built up the "eastern hemisphere disease pool", read this book.