Epidemics and Ideas : Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Past and Present Publications)

Rating:
Summary: Scary diseases, dense read
Review: Ranger and Slack's book has a lot of interesting material, but most people will be put off by the writing. It is written by academics for academics and is not as readable as, say, Kolata's Flu. The articles are not concerned with what causes epidemics or how they are treated.The reactions of people to really scary diseases is the theme. Whether they are ancient Athenians reacting to plague or us modern folks learning about AIDS, people seem to react to epidemics in the same ways: they try to find human scapegoats to blame for the outbreak and those who can try to leave the area where the disease has broken out. The novelty and physical loathsomeness of the disease also have a lot to do with what people do. Some of these articles are more readable than others; the best are on Hawaiian depopulation, epidemics in the Dark Ages, and the Athenian plague. Probably a book only for specialists or very serious nonspecialists.