The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History





No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War.

In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley said Barry’s last book can "change the way we think." The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world.









List Price: $ 29.95



Price: $ 19.95



Troy: From Homer's Iliad to Hollywood Epic





This is the first book systematically to examine Wolfgang Petersen’s epic film Troy from different archaeological, literary, cultural, and cinematic perspectives.

The first book systematically to examine Wolfgang Petersen’s epic film Troy from different archaeological, literary, cultural, and cinematic perspectives.

Examines the film’s use of Homer’s Iliad and the myth of the Trojan War, its presentation of Bronze-Age archaeology, and its place in film history.

Identifies the modern political overtones of the Trojan War myth as expressed in the film and explains why it found world-wide audiences.

Editor and contributors are archaeologists or classical scholars, several of whom incorporate films into their teaching and research.

Includes an annotated list of films and television films and series episodes on the Trojan War.

Contains archaeological illustrations of Troy, relevant images of ancient art, and stills from films on the Trojan War.

List Price: $ 36.95



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