The Great Influenza
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  • Published: 1 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241991565
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $22.99

The Great Influenza

The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Dec 2020
EBook
16 Apr 2024
EBook
27 Aug 2020
Audiobook
16 Apr 2024
Audiobook
27 Aug 2020
Hardback
14 May 2024
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In 1918, the world faced the deadliest pandemic in human history. What can the story of the so-called Spanish Flu teach us about the fight against present day crises, and how to prepare for future outbreaks?

At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the aftermath of Covid-19 and future pandemics looming on the horizon.
  • Published: 1 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241991565
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $22.99
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Praise for The Great Influenza

Monumental... powerfully intelligent... not just a masterful narrative... but also an authoritative and disturbing morality tale

<i>Chicago Tribune</i>

'A sobering account of the 1918 flu epidemic, compelling and timely'

<i>Boston Globe</i>

'Majestic, spellbinding treatment of a mass killer'

<i>Kirkus</i>

'History brilliantly written... The Great Influenza is a masterpiece'

<i>Baton Rouge Advocate</i>

'Everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history'

Bill Gates

'Easily our fullest, richest, most panoramic history of the subject'

<i>New York Times Book Review</i>
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