The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History PDF

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Unique, sensational and shocking, this revelatory book provides, for the first time, a complete Europe-wide history of the Black Death. The author's painstakingly comprehensive research throws fresh light on the nature of the disease, its origin, its spread, on an almost day-to-day basis, across Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East and North Africa, its mortality rate and its impact on history. These latter two aspects are of central importance here, for it is demonstrated that the plague's death rates have consistently been under-estimated and that they were in fact much higher, making the disease's long-term effects on history even more profound.

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• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Boydell Press; 1 edition (December 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843832143
• ISBN-13: 978-1843832140
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.3 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History PDF

Possibly I can inject a moderate voice into the rather polarized reviews so far. Benedictow certainly demonstrates, and so have many others, that bubonic plague was involved and could spread faster than we thought. On the other hand, he overgeneralizes local extreme kill rates, and he writes as if no other diseases were involved in the great death peak of 1346-1353. This would mean that all the other diseases that constantly afflicted medieval Europe somehow took a holiday! In fact, we have known since at least Han Zinsser's RATS, LICE AND HISTORY in 1937, to say nothing of the more up-to-date, careful work of Graham Twigg, that other diseases must have taken full advantage of the opportunity caused by social breakdown. And, as Benedictow says, that breakdown caused many to die of sheer starvation and lack of care. Infants who lost parents almost always died, sick or no. We must assume that _Yersinia pestis_ killed only some of the many victims.

We can, however, assume it killed far more than it would in modern India or Africa, because in most of Europe it was a virgin-soil epidemic. People had no evolved or acquired immunity. They were sitting ducks. As to its being there: As Eliz B notes in her review, plenty of plague DNA has been found in the victims, quite apart from perfectly sober and convincing contemporary accounts, which DO include plenty of notes on dying rats.

I have to say, I am annoyed by modern "scholarship" on the plague. There is some good work (David Herlihy, etc.), but too many people take undefensible, extreme positions--maintaining that it was all plague, or that no plague was involved at all.

I am a research scientist and I have given much study to the nature of the Black Death and its recurring epidemics through the late 17th Century. After reading this book I am left with several pages of criticisms I have noted as I progressed from chapter to chapter. On innumerable instances very firm statements of fact are made regarding any number of subjects and absolutely no sources are provided. In some instances, even when referring to advanced concepts such as evolution of host:parasite interactions over time this is explained as common knowledge ("It was well known that...") with zero sources provided. Within the past 20 years a sizeable body of highly compelling research into the true identity of the causative agent of the Black Death has been conducted. Any serious student of the Black Death, microbiology/bacteriology, epidemiology or medieval history is doing themselves a disservice if they fail to examine at least one publication from this body of research. These include "Biology of Plagues" and "Return of the Black Death" by Susan Scott & Christopher Duncan; "The Black Death: a Biological Reappraisal" by Graham Twigg; "The Black Death Transformed" by Samuel K. Cohn; and "The Black Death and the Transformation of the West" by David Herlihy. The book reviewed here was published in 2004 and it takes the position that Yersinia pestis was the causative agent of the Black Death. Although this theory is certainly not new and has been advanced countless times before, this book fails to address the large body of evidence that counters this theory. While this is an understandable shortcoming of publications from over twenty years ago, it is not unreasonable to expect a current publication on the subject to at the very least acknowledge the existence of such evidence.