Another flu book! Like Albert Marrin’s Very, Very, Very Dreadful, Pale Rider is an investigation into the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919. Unlike Marrin’s work, however, Spinney goes more global. When Marrin focused a lot on how the Spanish flu affected World War I (and vice versa), Spinney looks at how it affected the world. She also looks more into the future — the question of a re-occurrence of a similar pandemic not if, it’s when.
“Between the first case recorded on 4 March 1918, and the last sometime in March 1920, it killed 50–100 million people, or between 2.5 and 5 per cent of the global population–a range that reflects the uncertainty that still surrounds it.”
I’ve already reviewed a book about this pandemic earlier this year, and honestly, the bare bones facts are basically the same in both: massive causalities, especially in healthy young men and women due to a phenomenon called cytokine storm. Soldiers dying like flies in boot camps, forts and on the field. Countries shutting down their borders and blaming the neighbors. It was a world-wide terror.
Spinney adds a little more culture and color to her recounting. It seems more…personal. For instance, she talks about the rituals performed in different communities to save themselves from the plague, like the “black weddings” in Odessa which took place on top of a grave. Stories like that give the scientific facts context and impact.
She also looks forward to the future. The flu hits us every year, of course, and some years are worse than others. But while a pandemic on this scale has not occurred again, that doesn’t mean we’re safe. In fact, scientists predict that it likely will happen again, and (hopefully) this time, we will be more prepared.