Plague has erupted in periodic outbreaks for almost as long as human history has been recorded. Its easy transmission has been responsible for some of the most severe death rates from any epidemic disease in history.

Author Lizabeth Hardman gives readers a compelling look into the history of the plague. Readers will learn about the scourge of mankind and its chaos over ancient times. They will learn about the third pandemic, and where the plague is in the world now. Readers will evaluate the impact it could have on the future. Bright images, illustrations, diagrams, and charts provide excellent concise details, perfect for report writing and researching.

An eye-opening anthology from the bestselling editor of Histories of Nations, exploring how people around the globe have suffered and survived during plague and pandemic, from the ancient world to the present. Plague, pestilence, and pandemics have been a part of the human story from the beginning and have been reflected in art and writing at every turn. Humankind has always struggled with illness; and the experiences of different cities and countries have been compared and connected for thousands of years. Many great authors have published their eyewitness accounts and survivor stories of the great contagions of the past. When the great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Damascus in 1348 during the great plague, which went on to kill half of the population, he wrote about everything he saw. He reported, "God lightened their affliction; for the number of deaths in a single day at Damascus did not attain 2,000, while in Cairo it reached the figure of 24,000 a day." From the plagues of ancient Egypt recorded in Genesis to those like the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages, and from the Spanish flu of 1918 to the Covid-19 pandemic in our own century, this anthology contains fascinating accounts. Editor Peter Furtado places the human experience at the center of these stories, understanding that the way people have responded to disease crises over the centuries holds up a mirror to our own actions and experiences. Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic includes writing from around the world and highlights the shared emotional responses to pandemics: from rage, despair, dark humor, and heartbreak, to finally, hope that it may all be over. By connecting these moments in history, this book places our own reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic within the longer human story.

How epidemic photography during a global pandemic of bubonic plague contributed to the development of modern epidemiology and our concept of the “pandemic.” In Visual Plague, Christos Lynteris examines the emergence of epidemic photography during the third plague pandemic (1894–1959), a global pandemic of bubonic plague that led to over twelve million deaths. Unlike medical photography, epidemic photography was not exclusively, or even primarily, concerned with exposing the patient’s body or medical examinations and operations. Instead, it played a key role in reconceptualizing infectious diseases by visualizing the “pandemic” as a new concept and structure of experience—one that frames and responds to the smallest local outbreak of an infectious disease as an event of global importance and consequence. As the third plague pandemic struck more and more countries, the international circulation of plague photographs in the press generated an unprecedented spectacle of imminent global threat. Nothing contributed to this sense of global interconnectedness, anticipation, and fear more than photography. Exploring the impact of epidemic photography at the time of its emergence, Lynteris highlights its entanglement with colonial politics, epistemologies, and aesthetics, as well as with major shifts in epidemiological thinking and public health practice. He explores the characteristics, uses, and impact of epidemic photography and how it differs from the general corpus of medical photography. The new photography was used not simply to visualize or illustrate a pandemic, but to articulate, respond to, and unsettle key questions of epidemiology and epidemic control, as well as to foster the notion of the “pandemic,” which continues to affect our lives today.

The Diana trilogy concludes with Plague! in which the evil bioterrorist, Z’ivik, has once again used his incredible intelligence to formulate and release devastating botanical plagues on numerous planets throughout the galaxy. The daughter of the Chief Medical Officer of the Explorer works with Alliance scientists to find the cure for these plagues. She suffers a vicious attack by Z’ivik and seems to suffer a debilitating nervous breakdown as a result. Z’ivik then formulates a deadly hemorrhagic fever which he unleashes on numerous planets including the planet of Zahri. The Emissary of the Alliance and his wife, parents of the Executive Officer of the Explorer, as well as the High Priest of Zahri, all fall victim to this catastrophic fever which has a mortality rate of 100%. The crew of the Explorer put their lives on the line to put an end to Z’ivik’s devastation and to save the universe from total annihilation. Read Plague! with its fast-paced action and tension-filled plot in this perilous journey to the stars. A must-read for science fiction fans! If you love Star Trek, you’ll love Plague!

This Element examines the emergence of comprehensive plague management systems in early modern France. While the historiography on plague argues that the plague of Provence in the 1720s represented the development of a new and 'modern' form of public health care under the control of the absolutist monarchy, it shows that the key elements in this system were established centuries earlier because of the actions of urban governments. It moves away from taking a medical focus on plague to examine the institutions that managed disease control in early modern France. In doing so, it seeks to provide a wider context of French plague care to better understand the systems used at Provence in the 1720s. It shows that the French developed a polycentric system of plague care which drew on the input of numerous actors combat the disease.