Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
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Narrated by:
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Samara Naeymi
About this listen
COVID-19 and the History of Pandemics and Epidemics
It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives.
Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts. Most, but not all, bacteria are good for us. Some are truly horrific, including those that caused the bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plagues. And viruses and bacteria are always morphing, evolving, and changing, making them hard to treat. Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses: From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19 is an enlightening, and sometimes frightening, recounting of the destruction wrought by disease, but it also looks at what humanity has done and can do to overcome even the deadliest and bleakest of contagions.
This important book chronicles the history of plagues and pandemics, human resilience, and what we've learned from the past, including:
- The bubonic plague/black plague, which killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population
- The devastation to the indigenous population in the Americas
- How the 1918 Spanish Flu did not come from Spain
- How disease inspired The Canterbury Tales, Wuthering Heights, pop artist Keith Haring, and others
- AIDS patient zero
- The differences between COVID-19 and other coronaviruses
- How climate change will affect future pandemics
- The aftermath of various pandemics
- Several modern diseases making a comeback
- How to stop most epidemics before they can turn into pandemics
- The science of preventative measures and medical interventions
- An exclusive interview with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the NIAID and much, much more.
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What listeners say about Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-05-23
very good
worth a read. very interesting and informative. Exposes some realities in life. Very good. throughly wellenjoyed it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mat
- 05-07-23
Very good
A really good listen with an in depth approach to the subject. High quality writing and performance.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- James B
- 02-09-23
an interesting listen
well worth a try. excellent clarity of narration and some great chapters. I suggest skipping the San Domingo chapter due to horrendous/laughable pronunciation, and the COVID 19 story is a bit 'yawn' too, but overall I enjoyed it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Tiddlypoo
- 03-01-24
Fascinating throughout
Detailed information on pandemics as the title suggests. The author manages to make the subject relatable by referring to people within families faced with horrors such as the Black Death. I learned a few new facts about Covid, smallpox and vaccinations.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- David Howeth
- 17-06-24
This book is unbelievably good!
So we'll written to help us complexly understand how disease vs virus works but in a dummy way for us no scientists. It's fascinating how some of these vrius/bacteria work and differ, how plague worked and what it ment to the people of that time, believing to be a religious punishment and how we slowly releasing it was the work of our own filthy ways we lived. The descriptions of how brutal some illnesses are like yellow fever, bleeding from every hole, eyes, ears, anus and how it send the patient mad in some cases. How certain words became to be due to our believes as far back as Greek metholody, loonatic coming from the moon and it's belif it had the power to send people mad. Epidemic meaning "infectining all". Just the way the human body works to destroy diseases and how the cells remember for future attacks, how vaccines work and differ from live to dead ones, how penicillin - antibiotics was discovered but how we used to apply moldy bread to injuries way before it's discovery, how they r becoming less affective. Bacteria is alive living and the first organism on the planet but a virus is neither dead or living and thus cannot replicate itself like bacteria. All this and I'm only up to yellow fever.. Second best thing is it's FREE!!!!!!! I'd pay no problems tho. Amazing if ur into how things work or find zombie virus interesting lol ud probably even enjoy it. Fantastic so far!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Richard Bevan
- 24-01-24
Insightful!
Brilliant insight into pathogens past and present, along with the history surrounding them! The narrator does a fantastic job (despite a few mispronounced words!)
My only complaint is that the tail end of the book gets a bit Trump heavy. I don't hate the guy, just not that interested in him either.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- Mazarine
- 26-03-21
Already well read? This may not be enough...
A pleasant run through the history of pandemics with very occasional snippets that are new. The narrator had a confident and engaging manner, but her shocking pronunciation of foreign names is painful. This is made worse because the book talks about global history.
English is my mother tongue and I'm fluent in French. Almost every British place was mispronounced eg. The River 'Tames' as she says it, rather than 'Temz' as it should be pronounced.
As for the story of San Domingo, her pronunciation was so bad that it was comical. I played it to a French colleague who almost fell off her chair laughing. She agreed that it sounded as if someone was mocking her language.
Given that this is her career, a few simple checks with real French or British people would have left her professional credibility intact. As it stands, this reader found it sloppy and lazy.
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1 person found this helpful