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Plagues and Peoples

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 1,329 ratings · 82 reviews

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China,...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published October 11th 1977 by Anchor (first published 1976)

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Sep 06, 2009 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, to-read-again, environmental-history, extremely-fond-of

Finally finished this book. It took me a while to read it due to personal stuff and the subject matter, but it ended up being one of my favorites (hence the labor of love category). It being a favorite is leading me to believe I have a soft spot for environmental history. Yes the book was much about epidemiology, but the focus was also very much on how certain diseases were possible within certain environments – how they got there, how they survived there, and how those environments were affecte...more Finally finished this book. It took me a while to read it due to personal stuff and the subject matter, but it ended up being one of my favorites (hence the labor of love category). It being a favorite is leading me to believe I have a soft spot for environmental history. Yes the book was much about epidemiology, but the focus was also very much on how certain diseases were possible within certain environments – how they got there, how they survived there, and how those environments were affected in the way of future outbreaks, food cultivation, population growth/ reduction, etc.

You will not get a lot of unknown facts about diseases from this book as the majority of the time periods addressed were prior to formal record keeping and disease identification. However, you will get a great exercise of the mind in the way of a priori thinking and cause and effect relationships. McNeil does a great job of showing us how the evidence that is available - evidence from sources such as religious writings, population records, and recent day archeological finds - can be constructed to shed light on when certain pandemics/epidemics broke out, what they more than likely were, how the specific viruses affected populations, how the human body reacted to the viruses over time, and how those viruses in return reacted to the human body.

Although this books main subject is epidemiology, it is very similar (although a precursor) to books like Guns, Germs and Steel in that it addresses various macroparisitic and microparisitic effects on the growth of civilizatoins. However, its focus on diseases makes it particularly interesting and provides a sort of mental anchor when thinking about the multitude of variables that has shaped our world. Yes, I can appreciate that after reading this book I am now more aware of the major viruses/diseases that affected our history, but more than anything, that ebb and flow thinking of how the big picture came to be is more concreted in my mind. And this is the book’s greatest value to me.
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Nov 18, 2012 Trista rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: airplane

This is what I call an "airplane book" as no one will bother you when you read it because its so alarming. Other great books on this genre (different authors) are "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach (much more readable, this author has a charming sense of humor) and the "The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers" by Scott Carney (a very readable author, very much in tune and sympathetic to the subject at h...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Aurochz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, neuorscience-evolution, history

A groundbreaking work in epidemiological history. McNeil attempts to do two things in this work. One, show how some of the larger bacterial infections have shaped human history. Two, he wishes to show that humans can be described in parasitic terms in regards to social organization and practices. I think it meets both aims well. Especially when one considers that at the time this book was written, it was the start of the bio-historian look at history. I think it is necessary to say that because...more A groundbreaking work in epidemiological history. McNeil attempts to do two things in this work. One, show how some of the larger bacterial infections have shaped human history. Two, he wishes to show that humans can be described in parasitic terms in regards to social organization and practices. I think it meets both aims well. Especially when one considers that at the time this book was written, it was the start of the bio-historian look at history. I think it is necessary to say that because some people on this site have criticized the speculative nature of this work.

The reason I believe the more speculative aspects of this work do little to discredit his opinions especially in the early chapters, is because his aims are small and based on comparable scenarios today. He never made a claim beyond what could be understood now. Taking the speculative nature on his claims about why the Chinese did not colonize the southern territories of its general geopolitical region, he is able to show modern analogies and other circumstances that happened at the time, to show why the diseases would be a prevalent factor in these areas not being conquered until well after the controlled irrigation of the yellow river. We can see in recorded parts of history how malarial and general "fever" diseases have stopped human exploration and encroachment. Why would he necessarily be wrong for these earlier parts of history? He also isn't saying things that cant be refuted, we can know to some extent whether what he is saying is right even if no written records exist.

We can do this by employing epigenetics, the study of changes in the genetic code of humans over a specific region or internationally to see how certain genetic markers helped people to survive and keep reproducing. They may show markers that are conducive to combating specific diseases within a given population that were acquired around the dates he proposed. We can also do it, by studying further, retro-viral DNA, though these diseases may be too young for that to be specifically relevant here. It is also good to note that there is much more information and evidence in regards to these epidemiological histories now, independent of what I just said.

I any case, this books speculations are and can be much more than shots in the dark. I think the book was highly informative and interesting. It shows how many historical parallels and occurrences may have epidemiological causes. It shows how diseases such as Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Small Pox, Malaria and many other diseases spread and influenced historical progress. He showed how many of them follow along historic trade routes and times of conquest. It gives explanations for why certain social practices developed in order to avoid disease. An example being the Mongols aversion to sick Marmots and how their cultural practices without being explicitly aware of it avoided diseases this way. While Manchurian traders who tried to hunt the same animal brought disease on themselves with the sick furs due to their lack of similar social practices. Instances like this can give sociobiological explanations on why certain societies work the way they do.

The book achieved its main aims and filled in some of the gaps traditional histories leave open rather well. I highly recommend to those interested in history and science. (less)

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Apr 27, 2011 Paul Laub rated it 5 of 5 stars

MacNeill's new (in 1976) take on the roles of disease in history compels this question: how might his viewpoint be applied to preventing and treating infectious disease of the future? He touches this question in his discussion of AIDS (in the Introduction to the book's 1998 edition) and in his final chapter on the impact of medical science.

In reading these two sections, I was struck by the unexpected. HIV, for example, may not be a new virus as once thought, but an old one filling a new ecologic...more MacNeill's new (in 1976) take on the roles of disease in history compels this question: how might his viewpoint be applied to preventing and treating infectious disease of the future? He touches this question in his discussion of AIDS (in the Introduction to the book's 1998 edition) and in his final chapter on the impact of medical science.

In reading these two sections, I was struck by the unexpected. HIV, for example, may not be a new virus as once thought, but an old one filling a new ecological niche opened by changes (gay liberation, inexpensive IV syringes, widespread air travel) emergent in the 1970s. And for the (still incomplete) conquest of infectious disease made in the 19th and 20th centuries, antibiotics surprisingly played a relatively small role. (Arriving in the 1940s they were late comers to the story.)

Far more important, MacNeill shows, were the identification of the pathogenic agents (via the germ theories of Pasteur and Koch), the application of such knowledge by organized public health authorities, and the political power granted to these authorities to coerce compliance. Thus, on page 283, MacNeill writes "small pox vaccination was decreed ...", "mandatory quarantine for all transients was ordered ...", and "authorities instituted compulsory inoculation ...". More recently, during the worldwide outbreaks of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in Spring 2003, thousands of people, mostly in Asia, were forcibly quarantined, while Toronto suffered major economic disruption after the World Health Organization recommended nonessential travel to that city be curtailed. SARS, however, was contained without extensive deaths. Here then is a new theme, one absent across much of the history MacNeill covers: governmental power to isolate, quarantine, and vaccinate. MacNeill does not dwell much on it, although two famous works of fiction do: Camus's The Plague and DeFoe's Journal of the Plague Year.

Most histories are about people generally and some important persons (e.g., Pizarro and Pasteur) in particular. MacNeill, too, writes that way, yet, more importantly, he adds something new. He partially elaborates the ecological dynamics of populations. In short, "ecological" here refers to interactions within and across different organization scales, for example, the microparasitism (pathogen and host) and macroparasitism (people, government, and military) "Dynamics" encompass phenomena common to the natural history of disease: perturbation (e.g., introduction of disease into North and South America by explorers like Cortez), fluctuation of population number (often, as mass die-offs), and re-equilibration (as a once lethal epidemic disease evolves into a less virulent, endemic illness of childhood). Finally, "populations" are aggregate collections of organisms such as people, where what matters are certain thresholds. What fraction of the population possesses immunity? Or, how large is an urban area? MacNeill notes that epidemic spread of measles, for example, requires an urban population of at least five hundred thousand.

Dynamics are what makes Plagues and Peoples interesting (as well as grim) reading. The confluence of several small factors can have large impacts. The disappearance of leprosy (Hansen's disease) in much of Europe, MacNeill suggests, might be due to the increased affordability of warm, woolen clothing and the greater availability of firewood beginning in the early 1400s. Who would have guessed that?

A fuller elaboration of ecological dynamics would necessarily be mathematical. (JD Murray's book Mathematical Biology, for instance, describes quantitative models of disease transmission.) Mathematical modeling is probably beyond the scope of the historian, yet MacNeill's presentation raises interesting possibilities. In combating diseases of the future, what fraction of a population must we vaccinate or quarantine in order to stop an epidemic? The phenomenon of "herd immunity" shows that that fraction is usually less than 100 percent, sometimes as low as 80 percent (see the Wikipedia article). Given the clash between the political freedom (e.g., the choice NOT to be vaccinated) and the medically successful role of coercive public health measures, better understanding these thresholds is apt to be important.

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Oct 21, 2010 Everhopeful rated it 1 of 5 stars

In all honesty, I'm rather surprised to see this getting the number of good reviews that it has here! I'm reading it for a Cultural Geography class with the intent to critique it at the end of the semester. If there are additional over-blown words the author can find to make a single sentence more complicated and flowery, he certainly finds it! As for the research and support to his arguments, I'm on page 110 or so and so far he's thrown the FACT that this is based on guesswork far more than any...more

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Aug 07, 2012 GoldGato rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: health, history, winter

Civilized diseases. This is the book that first alerted me to the way some germs and viruses have altered human history, much as pigeons have become a part of our daily environment. As we have developed the previously virgin landscape of the world, we have unwittingly unleashed the microbes intent on destroying us. Tit-for-tat. Throw in the 'peoples' element, such as Roman legionnaires turning on their own communities or Mongols burning villages and their occupants into ashes, and one wonders wh...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Jeremy Mccool rated it 4 of 5 stars

Although I have some philosophical difficulties with the arguments presented through this book, I believe McNeill's insights into human history--epochs and eras as dominated by plagues and diseases and not by human triumph--are very fascinating. I read this book with vigor, and although some of the imagery is a bit graphic, the narrative does have quite a bit of explanatory power. The base argument is that disease and the business of death have been responsible for the course human history has t...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fun-nonfiction, the-natural-world

An entertaining, if depressing, book on how history has been shaped by disease and pathogens. If you liked Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, this book is all about the germs, and about more than just the modern era: there are interesting comments on the Black Death and the rise of "childhood diseases" and why the tropics are still to be feared in terms of disease (and why climate change is so worrisome, even though that fear postdates the book by a few decades).

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Apr 27, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Katarina rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Academics, Historians

Shelves: non-fiction

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with Plagues and Peoples. I had expected discussion of exactly what cultural ramifications disease epidemics have had throughout history. The movement of disease and the large-scale changes that forced upon populations throughout history was discussed in great detail, but the CULTURAL impact of all this was not the focus. Instead, McNeill took a very empirical, scientific view of history, and chose to look at it as a series of events and interactions between or...more Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with Plagues and Peoples. I had expected discussion of exactly what cultural ramifications disease epidemics have had throughout history. The movement of disease and the large-scale changes that forced upon populations throughout history was discussed in great detail, but the CULTURAL impact of all this was not the focus. Instead, McNeill took a very empirical, scientific view of history, and chose to look at it as a series of events and interactions between organisms. While the cultural changes are mentioned, they are not the focus. For example, in the chapter about the plague epidemics, McNeill focuses on transmission of the disease, possible origins, effects of that disease on the prevalence of others, and quarentine measures enacted in response. There are brief mentions of anti-Semetism and the Flagellents, but they are a divergence from the focus. I would have preferred to read more about how Plague inspired such movements, forced the rearrangement of political systems, and created conditions that allowed science and art to develop rapidly in its wake.
I also felt that the text was quite dryand often pendantic. Many points were hammered home repeatedly, chapter after chapter, to the point where I really didn't want to read about them anymore. some chapters were worse than others; the first two chapters, on pre-history and ancient history struck me as especially tedious and repetitive. The chapters on the middle ages and the "discovery of the New World" periods were most interesting; perhaps because I was already aquainted, to an extent, with the ramifications of disease in those periods. The final chapter, disease after 1700, was also fairly interesting; it focused on the roots of medical advancement, social change that doctors were able to bring about, and modern (20th centure) epidemics. It was slightly limited in scope, as the book was written in the 1970s-- ithe rise of anti-biotic resistant bacteria and AIDS were not issues at the time. I feel that epidemic disease is again a threat to our society, but at the time of publication, that didn't seem possible. As a result, I found the conclusion bland.(less)

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May 26, 2008 Briana Patterson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: school-reading, history, non-fiction

This book was alright. The author knows his stuff and he's very informative. Most of his conclusions are reasonable, and he provides a fresh look at history that his contemporaries have not accounted for.

However, I hold several reservations concerning his guesswork where information was lacking. McNeill readily admits that he's working with limited sources and most of his conclusions are fine, but there are times when I don't agree with his logic. There's also some outdated concepts within his a...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Brigitte rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, history

This was a re-read and I enjoyed the book but I found myself wishing for an updated version, as this was written in the 1970s, and I kept wondering as the author referred to places like China and India, which hadn't had, at that point, the same level of historical analysis of diseases that Europe had had, just what scholarly research into both history and medicine, as well as more recent experiences with pandemics like AIDS, could add to the story of infectious diseases and their impact on human...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Sam Norton added it

Very interesting, reminded me of Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel." Probably one of the most poorly laid-out books I've ever read. 300 pages and only 6 chapters? Are you kidding? Furthermore, each chapter was less a systematic account of the history of infectious disease than the author's stream of consciousness-like babblings. Again, the information is very good, and very interesting, but this book took me over a month to finish, primarily due to the horrible layout. Not a reader-friendly book.

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Feb 27, 2011 Benjamin rated it 3 of 5 stars

An interesting look at the direct and indirect impacts of infectious diseases. The book is old, and I am not qualified to judge if it is up-to-date. If nothing else, however, it forces one to consider the dramatic ways disease has affected our history.

my favorite quote: "Like a disease invading an inexperienced host population, the incidence of civilized forms of macroparasitism have fluctuated sharply through recorded history--sometimes killing off excessive numbers of the peasants and other wo...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This was one of the most compelling books I have ever read. In particular, I admired the sourcing and the boldness of some of the claims; I much prefer scholars putting their necks out on the line with bold, properly caveated arguments, rather than seeing them retreat into timid, easier intellectual spaces. McNeil clearly prefers the former.

At the core of the book, McNeil argues that we should view humans as one species among many in the competition and struggle for survival, facing other macrop...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Sandra Strange rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-and-nonfiction

If you think we control the world, think again. This book traces the influence of diseases on history. It's compelling reading. It's interesting that this is a part of history rarely studied, except for some mention of the Black Plague, in college classes, though again and again disease interrupts the plans and course of men.

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Jun 24, 2012 Andrew Calderon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

The author takes an epidemiological lens to analyze the development of human culture from the beginning of human history (insofar as historians know). The author displays a tremendous erudition of European history and biology. The biological information substantiates his claims about the spread of infectious contagion. I highly recommend this book. I will attempt to write a review worthy of this book later on.

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Oct 07, 2011 Joe Iacovino rated it 4 of 5 stars

The information provided lays out some concepts that seem intuitive now, which made it all the more interesting when considering what happened in history to achieve this new thinking. The writing style has been noted by some as "flowery" or "verbose" (to them I'd say avoid Hawthorne) but I did not find such criticism warranted. The chapters are lengthy at 50-60 pgs each which isn't the style I prefer and there certainly is a lot of repetition in making his points. However, in the author's defens...more

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Mar 30, 2011 Harrison rated it 4 of 5 stars

In addition to having been groundbreaking in historic epidemiology, is one of a select few books to deal with the concept of cities being, at least until the advent of sanitation, demographic drains on the surrounding countryside. McNeill's language is dry, but he makes his ideas clear enough.

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Aug 23, 2012 Morgan Christiansen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting ideas, but I found myself reading paragraphs over because I just couldn't understand much of the writing.

McNeill accomplishes his goal of establishing humanity as a driving force in the operation, both endemic and epidemic, of disease, relating to the main idea that disease has played a huge part in history. It's a very tough read, and perhaps I'm being too hard on it...

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Oct 22, 2009 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brilliant analysis on the role that microbes might have played in the shaping of human history. It is well thought out, well researched, and enjoyable to read (at least when if you dig that sort of subject). It is also a wonderful reminder that there are other forces at work influencing the past, present, and future of mankind aside from humans.

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Feb 07, 2011 Hayden rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: college, history

McNeill even admits that evidence is somewhat unreliable or downright impossible to find, but he still makes some interesting points and the book is at least worth reading if one is looking to read a 300 page chronicle of international infectious disease and epidemics (however narrow that subset of people is).

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Jul 15, 2012 Alexis rated it 1 of 5 stars

i thought hat this book was very hard to read. And it was a lot about the evolution and i don't believe in that type of stuff. i have to read this book for my school because im going into the IB program. and i just thought it was very hard to read

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Jan 20, 2012 Chrissy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-in-my-library

I'm certain this book deserves a far better rating than I've given it; however I really couldn't bring myself to say that I liked it. There were moments where it peaked my interest (when Historical events I'm familiar with were mentioned), and I certainly learned a great deal.

I would happily recommend this book to someone more interested in science than I am... with the note that it is really very dry.

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Nov 28, 2011 Jason rated it 1 of 5 stars

I only made it through 160 pages of this one. It was incredibly boring, and read like a doctoral dissertation, which is a shame because the subject matter was interesting, but the writing wasn't. This could have been as good as Flu or Guns, Germs and Steel, but it lacked oomph and I found it a struggle to get through the pages that I did manage to get read. Very disappointing.

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May 12, 2009 Aislinn added it

Don't bother. This book may've been revolutionary in its day, but compared to newer books that cover similar ground (like Guns, Germs, and Steel) it's pretty dull, very vague, and too outdated to be very useful.

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Jul 16, 2012 Bryan marked it as to-read-4-would-like-to

Shelves: history, non-fiction

See also: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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Sep 21, 2010 Smita rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not a bad read, but his language is too flowery and the material is incredibly redundant. That being said, the material itself is interesting (so are others like Guns, Germs and Steel) and somewhat thorough.

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Feb 25, 2007 Lee Drake rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: archaeology

This work seemlessly unites archaeology, history, and microbial biology by looking at how infectious diseases have caused our history. The deepest implications are reserved for our future, but the resolution of the past is brought into clarity as well. McNeil points to the sucess of Muhammed and Alexander the Great and argues that they owe more to diseases ravaging the conquered rather than the military prowess of the conquerer. Simple facts such as the density of cities and the rates of infecti...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Kaela Chow rated it 3 of 5 stars

More like 3.5/5. A good book but not quite what I was expecting. I was hoping for more detailed stories of the various plagues mankind had gone through rather than our co-evolution.

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