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Attributes of Pale Rider By Laura Spinney PDF
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Proportions of Pale Rider By Laura Spinney PDF
- Publisher : PublicAffairs; Illustrated edition (September 18, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- International Standard Book Number-10 : 1541736125
- International Standard Book Number-13 : 978-1541736122
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
Reviews From Customers
Top reviews from the United States
Mal Warwick
A fascinating and sobering revisionist history based on contemporary research
June 5, 2018
If you’re unfamiliar with the history of the Spanish Flu of 1918, or if your understanding of the pandemic is rooted in what you read many years ago, you may be unfamiliar with its tragic dimensions. British science journalist Laura Spinney sets us all straight in Pale Rider:The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World. “The Spanish flu infected one in three people on earth,” she writes, “or 500 million human beings. Between the first case recorded on 4 March 1918, and the last sometime in March 1920, it killed 50-100 million people, or between 2.5 and 5 per cent of the global population.” Erupting in three waves, the killer flu brought about social, political, and economic changes reminiscent of those of the Black Death nearly 600 years earlier. And its impact was global, whereas the Black Death brought disaster largely to Europe and Asia.
The Spanish Flu was, Spinney asserts, “the biggest disaster of the twentieth century.” In all likelihood, the disease killed more than World Wars I and II combined. We Westerners may fail to recognize the pandemic’s catastrophic scope because Europe and North America “reported the lowest death rates, on average, so their experiences were atypical.” In India, for example, including present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, “the rate was ten times that in America.” Spinney reports that “an estimated 500,000 children were orphaned in South Africa alone,” and as many as 18 million Indians died in the pandemic, about 6 per cent of its population. However, the author’s emphasis is less on the sheer numbers of casualties than it is on the multiple effects on society at large. For instance, she believes that the flu helped push India closer toward independence (and of course explains her reasoning in detail). Her exploration of the long-term consequences is sobering.
It may be difficult for us today to grasp just how different the world was merely a century ago when the Spanish Flu broke out. Spinney reminds us that “life expectancy at birth in Europe and America did not exceed fifty, and in large parts of the globe it was much lower. Indians and Persians, for example, were lucky to celebrate their thirtieth birthdays.” Science-based medicine was in its infancy even in the wealthiest countries. What today we call “alternative” therapies such as osteopathy or homeopathy were at least as likely to gain the trust of those who fell ill. In fact, physicians may have done as much harm as good, the Hippocratic Oath notwithstanding. Little wonder. “Viruses occupied only a tiny corner of the psychic universe of 1918. They hadn’t been seen, and there was no test for them”—much less a vaccine or any effective treatment. To compound matters, other epidemic diseases were often raging simultaneously, including typhus and bubonic plague. In many areas, doctors were convinced the flu was the plague.
Spinney explains that the label “Spanish” flu is a misnomer. She traces the wide-ranging research into the true origins of the disease, identifying the leading candidates as the United States, China, and the Western Front in the European War. Her account wanders all over the globe, zeroing in on such far-flung communities as Odessa, Russia; Kimberley, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Zamora, Spain; and Bristol Bay, Alaska. These accounts are deeply disturbing. As is the case in so many circumstances, the poor were the hardest hit everywhere. Spinney notes that “it was bad diet, crowded living conditions and poor access to healthcare that weakened the constitution, rendering the poor, immigrants and ethnic minorities more susceptible to disease.” And those suffering from existing diseases were at the greatest risk.
Although Pale Rider is predominantly a work of history, and social history in particular, Spinney does delve into the scientific aspects of the pandemic. She explains the historical origins of influenza, the centuries-long efforts to understand it, and the development of vaccines beginning in the 1930s—too late, of course, to help those who fell to the Spanish Flu. However, as you’re no doubt aware, the ability of scientists to produce flu vaccines on an annual basis is no guarantee that another pandemic of similar scope won’t happen next year. There are simply too many varieties of influenza, and at least two strains influenza type A—H1N1, which was the basis of the Spanish Flu, and H5N1—have the potential to break out at any time in the future. And H5N1 kills some 60 per cent of the people it infects. We can only hope that an effective vaccine can be designed and manufactured in time and that today’s greater understanding of public health requirements will keep the death rate in check.
My only complaint about Pale Rider is that the book is structured in a way that requires some degree of repetition. Since it’s not arranged in chronological order or divided into neat categories, the book can be confusing. Spinney writes in circles. I got dizzy. But the problem is minor in the context of such an informative and well-written account.
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16
M Woody
Well worth the read…with a caveat or two.
February 15, 2018
Overall I found this book to be a compelling account of the Spanish flu pandemic and the it’s ramifications, but with a couple of caveats.
As some other reviews have pointed out, the narrative does jump around temporally a little more than seems necessary and can be a little bit disorienting. Overall the author is an accomplished writer and overcomes this for the most part.
I did find a couple of factual errors. Although relatively minor, factual errors always raise the question as to whether there could be others that I didn’t pick up on while reading. The first is simply a geographical error when describing the relationship of Haskell County, KS to Camp Funston. The books description would place Haskell County in Missouri rather than western Kansas. The second factual error had to do with the estimation of death from the flu in Russia. The author indicates that there were 450,000 documented deaths in Russia which “corresponds to 0.2 percent of the Russian population at that time.” Although I am not a statistician I am pretty sure that would extrapolate to a population of 225 million which is clearly incorrect.
I also found some the attempts to link the flu pandemic to other world events or cultural events to seem like a bit of a stretch. The author correctly points out from the beginning that the pandemic has not received the regard that it deserves as such a major event of the 20th century, however she does seem to be trying to over inflate it’s impact in some areas. This would be a minor quibble however in my opinion.
Overall this is an important book and worth the time to read.
8
Child of WW II vets
Parts are good, parts are not
November 3, 2018
After reading Miracle Cure, and with a family tie to the epidemic, I was really looking forward to this book. The author is clearly knowledgeable: however, there was about 150 pages of real material and 200 pages of padding. I wish I’d skipped the sections of pop psychoanalysis and speculative sociology, as well as the chronic virtue signaling. (Did the illness of peasant farmers cause global climate change in the Little Ice Age? Really? Were Native Alaskans scarred for generations by the death of their shaman?) The real warning sign is a science journalist who writes novels: apparently factual reporting of science isn’t interesting enough. In retrospect I wish I’d bought Barry’s The Great Influenza.
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