1976, Monticello Editions, NY, 369 pages

I have read three books on the history of disease and this is by far the best. All three were excellent, but McNeill paints a masterful picture of more than disease, more than human history. He shows us man as a species caught between two disease matrixes: the micro-parasitic world of viruses and bacilli, and the macro-parasitic world of politics and war. Man, the wretched host, emaciated, obliterated and scavenged by evils great and small!

The professor shows clearly how disease belts in the old world tropics prevented the spread of the most predatory civilizations for millennia. He identifies pockets of micro-parasitic dominance and shows how dominant civilizations thrived outside of these areas. He constantly keeps the reader wondering whether it is more miserable to die from lungs full of fluid or under the whip or sword of the oppressor. Of course, he covers the confluences too, like the Aztec catastrophe, when the world’s most sanitary society was inundated with micro-parasitic infection and macro-parasitic oppression at the same stroke.

There is an interesting discussion of the nature of certain unknown ancient plagues as well as who is to blame for syphilis; European peasants cuddling up in bed with sheep, or oversexed Native Americans sharing their wives.

Plagues and Peoples is a good read and superb reference.