Intended Audience
Trade
LCCN
2004-054213
Reviews
It's almost unethical to write a book on human cataclysm as entertaining as The Great Mortality. Strange that a book about the worst natural disaster in European history should be so full of life. This book may be written in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman but there is a seething vitality here that is Kelly's alone., John Kelly gives the reader a ferocious, pictorial account of the horrific ravages of [The Black Death]., A rich and evocative narrative history of the late Middle Ages, written in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman, which brings alive the time of the Black Death. I couldn't stop reading Kelly's story. It's a work of brilliance and wisdom., A fascinating account of the plague that swept Europe and Asia in the 14th century, killing about half the population. It's a frightening reminder of what could happen today., Rich and evocative…written in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman, I couldn't stop reading this work of brilliance and wisdom., The Black Death is history's best-known pandemic, but until now its full history has not been written. In The Great Mortality John Kelly gives a human face to the 14th century disaster that claimed 75 million lives, a third of the world's population., THE GREAT MORTALITY is a chilling account of a global siege, public pits, death-carts, silent villages and empty streets., THE GREAT MORTALITY skillfully draws on eyewitness accounts to construct a journal of the plague years., John Kelly gives the reader a ferocious, pictorial account of the horrific ravages of [the] plague...an emotionally accessible narrative, animated by wrenchingly vivid tableaus and alarming first-hand witness accounts. . . that give the reader an intimate sense of day-to-day life in medieval Europe., Stunning. . . . Kelly combines distinguished scholarship in the science, medicine and European history [and] meets some of the world's darkest days as if he were a forensic sleuth who must first re-create the ambience of the victims' world before tracking down their deaths. He endows The Great Mortality with the sheer immediacy ancient history yields to only a few., John Kelly approaches the story of the greatest tragedy in history like a forensic detective who must first recreate the life of the victims before examining their deaths. He probes through the debris of their virtues and sins as well as the mere foibles of daily life to reveal the rich and colorful world that was suddenly ripped apart and nearly destroyed by climate change, famine, and, ultimately, the horrors of the worst plague in world history. . . . Kelly's book might also be a warning about our own future., Powerful, rich, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose., A ground-level illustration of how the plague ravaged Europe…putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare., Splendidly written. Kelly has written a popular history based on the best scholarship available, and written it very well indeed., Stunning. The Great Mortality [is endowed with] the sheer immediacy ancient history yields to only a few., Timely and welcome . . . conveys in excruciating but necessary detail a powerful sense of just how terribly Europe suffered, and just how resilient it was in the face of what seemed to many certain extinction., Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us., The Great Mortality skillfully draws on eyewitness accounts to construct a journal of the plague years., John Kelly combines the skills of a medical writer with those of a historian . . . [he] offers an insightful and rather frightening exploration of medieval medicine. Exhaustively researched and relying largely on accounts of those who lived through the Black Death, Kelly's narrative offers us an intimate exploration of a world falling apart.
Dewey Edition
22
CLASSIFICATION_METADATA
{"IsNonfiction":["Yes"],"IsOther":["No"],"IsAdult":["No"],"MuzeFormatDesc":["Hardcover"],"IsChildren":["No"],"Genre":["SCIENCE","SOCIAL SCIENCE","HISTORY"],"Topic":["Europe / Medieval","Life Sciences / Biology","Disease & Health Issues"],"IsTextBook":["No"],"IsFiction":["No"]}
Dewey Decimal
614.5/732
Synopsis
"Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us." -- Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history--even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern. The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics can't convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning, where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence. In The Great Mortality , author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people--one third of the known population--before it vanished., A compelling and harrowing history of the Black Death epidemic that swept through Europe in the mid-14th century killing 25 million people. It was one of the most devastating human disasters in history. "The bodies were sparsely covered that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured them . And believing it to be the end of the world, no one wept for the dead, for all expected to die." Agnolo di Turo, Siena, 1348 In just over 1000 days from 1347 to 1351 the 'Black Death' swept across medieval Europe killing 30% of it's population. It was a catastrophe that touched the lives of every individual on the continent. The deadly Y. Pestis virus entered Europe by Genoese galley at Messina, Sicily in October 1347. By the spring of 1348 it was devastating the cities of central Italy, by June 1348 it had swept in to France and Spain, and by August it had reached England. One graphic testimony can be found at St Mary's, Ashwell, Hertfordshire, where an anonymous hand carved a harrowing inscription for 1349: 'Wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain.' According to the Foster scale, a kind of Richter scale of human disaster, the plague of 1347-51 is the second worst catastrophe in recorded history. Only World War II produced more death, physical damage, and emotional suffering. It is also the closest thing that Defence Analysts compare a thermonuclear war to - in geographical extent, abruptness and casualties. In The Great Mortality John Kelly retraces the journey of the Black Death using original source material - diary fragments, letters, manuscripts - as it swept across Europe. It is harrowing portrait of a continent gripped by an epidemic, but also a very personal story narrated by the individuals whose lives were touched by it., "Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us." -- Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history--even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern. The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics can't convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning, where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence. In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people--one third of the known population--before it vanished.
LC Classification Number
RC172.K445 2005
Copyright Date
2005
ebay_catalog_id
4
