Plagues: 50 Diseases That Changed the World

Smallpox killed more people than every war in human history combined.We tell the story of civilization through its emperors and its battles. But the force that emptied more cities, redrew more borders, and ended more dynasties than any general was too small to see.Plagues tells the history of the world through the fifty diseases that shaped it - from the bubonic plague that broke the feudal order, to the cholera outbreak that gave us modern sewers, to the deficiency illnesses we manufactured for ourselves in factories and on ships.Inside you'll find: - The pandemic that ended Athens' golden age - still unidentified after 2,400 years- The sweating sickness that struck England five times, then vanished forever- Why a doctor drank a beaker of bacteria to prove his colleagues wrong- The disease that killed more sailors than combat, and the citrus that stopped it- The second and last disease ever driven to extinction - and it wasn't smallpox- How a stopped clock, a pump handle, and a bowl of polished rice each changed medicine foreverEach of the fifty entries is a self-contained story: what the disease was, the outbreak that made its name, and - most importantly - what the world looked like afterward. Illustrated throughout with original engravings.Fifty diseases. Fifty turning points. One history of everything that almost stopped us.