The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.

John M. Barry. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. New York: Viking, 2004.

In 1918 an influenza virus emerged--probably in the United States--that would spread around the world. Before that worldwide pandemic faded away in 1920, it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history. Plague in the 1300s killed a far larger portion of the population--more than one quarter of Europe--but in raw numbers influenza killed more than plague did then, more than AIDS today (the lowest estimate of the pandemic's worldwide death toll is twenty-one million, in a world with a population less than one-third of present times). But 1918 was not the Middle Ages and the story of this epidemic was not simply one of death, suffering, and terror.

In 1918 science was used, for the first time in history, to battle epidemic disease and great scientists--pioneers who defined American medicine--fought against the pestilence. The politicians and generals of World War I, concentrating on a different sort of enemy, ignored warnings from these scientists and so enhanced conditions for the virus to kill. However, in the end, scientists made progress against the pandemic and a particularly tenacious investigator came up with one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century (this discovery has given birth to many Nobel prizes and is influential even now).

Can we learn anything from the response to the influenza pandemic of 1918 that would be helpful as we confront AIDS and other infectious diseases today? Is there a possibility that the world could face another devastating flu pandemic in the future? The Great Influenza answers these questions and provides a wealth of knowledge regarding the people and events surrounding a horrible epidemic that changed America and the world.