Medieval historian Aberth presents interactions of humans and epidemics in case studies of six infectious diseases: plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, influenza, and AIDS. He chose these because they have known pathogens, can be fatal, and have had long histories. Not merely narrative or descriptive, his study is an attempt to demonstrate how human reactions and attitudes to these diseases have in turn shaped how they affect human communities. Going beyond an exercise in the social construction of disease, Aberth's historical focus on the interaction of disease and human response leads him to be optimistic about human abilities to adjust to and even neutralize biomedical effects. The longest chapter, on the plague, reflects the author's professional specialty. The second longest chapter is on AIDS; remaining chapters are 9-24 pages. Aberth's detailed attention to Islamic understandings of and reactions to plague is especially welcome. He opens each chapter by describing the disease and its effects, then for each disease develops unique reactions and attitudes as well as points introduced earlier, weaving an overall pattern of human progress and intransigence, of connections made and opportunities missed. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

Choice Reviews

The prospect of a slender volume about plagues in world history would certainly be attractive to all those who teach either disease history or world history. Moreover . . . it is an approach that most students would embrace.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

John Aberth offers a social interpretation of disease throughout history using a comparative global framework. He has a lively writing style, and each chapter is framed by lucid summary descriptions of disease symptoms, progression, transmission, treatments, and the respective debates. Plagues in World History should be a profitable and successful textbook for undergraduate students and general readers.

Journal of World History

The author presents an effective case for the diseases he has chosen and provides the reader with current findings that allow for interpretations of disease origins.

The Historian

John Aberth's admirable work on this topic, Plagues in World History, deserves to be engaged with by anyone who is interested in pandemics throughout time. . . .The reader will be most impressed by the wealth of information about the various pandemics and the efforts by medical researchers to combat them up to today . . . [The author] persues his topic from a remarkably balanced position. . . .Both historians and medical researchers will find this book a fascinating read, an excellent digestion of what we know today about plagues in world history.

The Sixteenth Century Journal

John Aberth has written a concise book that is both well-informed and clear about contemporary medical understandings of epidemics, and steadily conscious of their broader historical, political, social, and economic contexts. In an age when such epidemics as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS affect millions, Aberth's arguments have continuing importance.

J. N. Hays, Loyola University, Chicago