Description

"Swords and lances, arrows, machine guns and even high explosives have had far less power over the fate of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea and the yellow-fever mosquito."

Both shocking and entertaining, this masterpiece of popular science writing tells the tragic story of the struggle between humanity and its humble but deadly enemies, the organisms of disease.

Zinsser shows how infectious disease simply represented an attempt of a living organism to survive. While from the human perspective an invading pathogen was abnormal, from the perspective of the pathogen it was perfectly normal.

From the pestilence which contributed to the downfall of Rome to the dancing manias of medieval Europe, the aristocracy’s fashion for wearing wigs and the role of typhus in the First World War, Zinsser reveals just how disease and epidemics have shaped human history.

Rats, Lice and History: The Classic Account of Infectious Disease and Human History

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£9.99

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Paperback / softback by Hans Zinsser

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Short Description:

"Swords and lances, arrows, machine guns and even high explosives have had far less power over the fate of nations... Read more

    Publisher: Duckworth Books
    Publication Date: 10/08/2017
    ISBN13: 9781911440895, 978-1911440895
    ISBN10: 1911440896

    Number of Pages: 320

    Description

    "Swords and lances, arrows, machine guns and even high explosives have had far less power over the fate of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea and the yellow-fever mosquito."

    Both shocking and entertaining, this masterpiece of popular science writing tells the tragic story of the struggle between humanity and its humble but deadly enemies, the organisms of disease.

    Zinsser shows how infectious disease simply represented an attempt of a living organism to survive. While from the human perspective an invading pathogen was abnormal, from the perspective of the pathogen it was perfectly normal.

    From the pestilence which contributed to the downfall of Rome to the dancing manias of medieval Europe, the aristocracy’s fashion for wearing wigs and the role of typhus in the First World War, Zinsser reveals just how disease and epidemics have shaped human history.

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