In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made

Rating:
Summary: Ring around the rosies
Review: Of all the books I've read recently, "In the Wake of the Plague" had the most power to place me in the middle of the action--in this case, in fourteenth-century England. In a sense, the experience was like watching a vivid, rather depressing movie where all of the main characters died of the plague. This is not so much a book about the biomedical aspects of the plague (although they are briefly discussed) as it is about the way the lives of the survivors were forever changed.

One of the threads that weaves through this book is how the development of physics might have been retarded by the death of Archbishop Bradwardine, who was a leading scholar at Oxford before receiving an appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Bradwardine and his fellow scholars such as Occam acknowledged "that there existed a world of science, which could establish the rules of natural operation, preferably expressed mathematically." Opposing this viewpoint, most especially at the University of Paris, were the Thomists who essentially lived and taught in a closed Aristotelian world. Although the author doesn't really believe the Oxford scholars would have tread a fourteenth century path to modern physics without algebra or decent optics, it is still a shame that Bradwardine was bitten by a flea on his way back from Avignon and never did make it all the way to Canterbury--at least while he still lived.

The author is not particularly kind to his Plantagenet kings. Henry II was a 'nineteen-year-old stud' when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their son John was manic-depressive. John's son, Henry III was "pious, feckless and cowardly." Richard II might have been a good king if it were not for the plague which turned him into a moody recluse. And what if Joan Plantagenet, King Edward III's daughter, "a top-drawer white girl, a European princess" had not died of the plague in Bordeaux on her way to marry Prince Pedro, heir to the kingdom of Castile? What a Plantagenet Empire we might have seen!

This book was published in 2001, and its epidemiology is quite different from anything I'd previously read. As the blurb on the cover puts it, "Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong." Cantor believes that the Black Death was actually a combination of bubonic plague and anthrax, as bubonic plague by itself could not have spread as rapidly as did the Black Death. Anthrax spores have also been found in the mass graves of plague victims, and the symptoms of the two diseases (except for the characteristic black buboes of the plague) are similar. In the chapter, "Serpents and Cosmic Dust," the author also gives some play to the notion proposed by astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge, i.e. that the Black Death originated in outer space.

Although I'm more in agreement with McNeill ("Plagues and Peoples") on the actual plague vectors (the Mongolian conquests and migrations), "In the Wake of the Plague" is well worth reading for its lively commentary on one of Europe's most devastating centuries.


Rating:
Summary: This book should be shunned like, well, the plague.
Review: This book is bad. It is badly written. It is poorly edited. It is wordy. The author digresses into irrelevant anecdotes which aren't all that interesting in the first place. This could be excused it weren't for the fact that the book is full of bad science. By quoting eminent scientist (which is true) and noted crackpot Fred Hoyle (referred to as a man of impeccable scientific credentials) he tells us that that each year an "immense number of bacteria and viruses of all kinds fall" fall down to earth. Good knows how much more of the content of this book is baloney, but after reading this I suspect quite a bit. Some of the history is definitely off. The Huns are referred to as Mongolians which is more precise than most other historians dare to be. We learn that crossbows are supposed to be able to shoots bolt for a maximum of 30 yards and take 30 minutes to reload. Neither statement is even close to true. As for the books stated purpose of showing the impact of the Black Death on history, the book fails completely.

Rating:
Summary: Unfocused at Best
Review: This book was an EXTREMELY difficult read. The author is prone to erratic, often unrelated tangents, which read like an exercise in free association. At times I felt like someone had taken passages from the reading comprehension section of the GRE and just thrown them together in a book without any overall reason. The worst was the section on the Jews. Whatever his feelings may be about the Jews, there is no need to trace their circumstances up to and including WWII in a book about the Black Death! He took what could have been an interesting chapter and mutilated it by losing any semblance of focus. In the book's defense there are some interesting bits of trivia in this dung heap, but unless you are a bit of a masochist I can't recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: It's not very good, is it?
Review: This is the first book I've read by Mr Cantor, and it's going to be the last. I don't know who's responsible for the blurb on the back cover describing him as the "pre-eminent medieval historian", but I certainly wouldn't describe him as such.

This is little more than a collection of barely-connected essays on various aspects of 14th-century life. After getting halfway through it I'd actually forgotten I was supposed to be reading a book on the Black Death. Instead of a chronological narrative describing the start of the plague, following its course across Europe and assessing its impact on each nation, Cantor describes an aspect of medieval life - royalty, serfdom, warfare, religion - and tacks on an explanation as to how the plague affected it.

Added to this is what I felt to be a condescending attitude to the people of the 14th century, something that's hardly fitting for an "expert" on the period. He sometimes makes gross generalisations such as describing Joan of Arc as a "doubtful national legend" or King John as "manic depressive" - he may well have been, but he was also a very good ruler - and his unecessary history of the Plantagenet dynasty is devoid of any real detail while still managing to be over-long.

I don't really know who this book is aimed at. It must be targeted at casual readers as there's simply not enough detail for the real medieval history buff. His continual references to modern American life to help explain a point are stupid, as the only constant similarites between 21st century life and that lived over 600 years ago are sleeping, eating and breathing. At one point he even manages to compare running a monastery such as that at Worcester with running a medium-sized American corporation, a comparison I felt to be impossible to make.

I have no doubt there are better books on the Black Death out there, I'm just annoyed I managed to pick this one first.

Rating:
Summary: Simple/Interesting. Not for the serious "pointy head"!
Review: Though I rarely buy books at the airport, I happened to pick this one up while passing through Indianapolis. Reading some of the other reviewers, I am compelled to write. This book is fine for the casual reader, and a quick, interesting, read...perhaps a primer from something more in-depth. If its writer presented it as in-depth, or the last word, I would have to rate it more strictly.

The central topic of this book is The Black Plague of 1348, however the book uses the evolving hypothesis that the various outbreaks of the plague over many years were not all plague; many epidemics were anthrax, making its own periodic appearance. Using various interesting personal stories the book follows the plague as it moves from south to north in the latter years of the 1340's and into the 1350's. As others have mentioned, it makes numerous side trips on periphery topics such the hysteria and guilt shamefully indicting the Jewish community, and peasant/serf economics associated with the many statistics of the plague. The book is more a casual history than a serious academic work, regardless there are some tidbits that are insightful and will stimulate intellectual curiosity. Cantor does bring the various topics of the book together in the end, though the reader will draw his/her own conclusions on the cause/effect of the plague and the "peasant's revolt".

I recognized the Author's name as I was searching for a book on medieval manorialism, though I had look at his works to remember the exact book. I have yet to read any of his other books, but he does have an impressive quantity of published works (at least from what I see), so my guess is he knows what he is doing. As an amateur student of history, I would say I am more an aficionado than anything serious, I do not claim to be an expert on English or medieval history, especially not as it relates to the plague. I do however read a great deal, and on great diversity of history and other topic, some contemporary and some antique. This one was fine.