New research, drawing on records from across Europe, throws light on the nature of the disease, its origin, spread, mortality, and its impact on history.
The Black Death was a disaster of such magnitude that it not only shook the Old World to its economic and social foundations, but changed the course of human history. Yet this book is the first comprehensive history and assessment of its progress, and of the death and devastation it left in its wake, in all the countries through which it passed. The many local studies on the Black Death published in a variety of languages and scholarly papers have for the first time been systematically collected and thoroughly analysed. The medical and epidemiological characteristics of the disease, its geographical origin, its spread across Asia Minor, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and the mortality in the countries and regions for which there are satisfactory studies, are clearly presented and thoroughly discussed. The pattern, pace and seasonality of spread revealed through close scrutiny of these studies exactly reflect current medical work and standard studies on the epidemiology of bubonic plague. Benedictow's findings relating to the mortality caused by the Black Death are based on the meticulous study and synthesis of all available demographic studies. Published over the past forty years, most of them in widely dispersed local journals and local histories, this cumulative evidence, far-reaching in its implications, has gone largely unnoticed. This book makes it clear that the true mortality rate was far higher than has been previously thought. In the light of these findings, the discussion in the last part of the book showing the Black Death as a turning point in history takes on a new significance.
Any new book about the Black Death has to have something original to say, and this one has, both in its conclusions and in the research on which theyare based. Stimulated by his work on the plague in the Nordic countries, Ole Benedictow has developed his pan-European overview of the Black Death from an intensive search through regional studies based on local records, synthesised here into a major work, something never previously attempted. Thisclose focus produces shocking results: Benedictow believes that previous estimates of the decline in population numbers, dire as they are, have substantially underestimated the effects of the disease: his evidence and conclusions will have implications for all historians of the period.The pastforty years have witnessed an explosion of local studies of the effects of the Black Death and its aftermath. In-depth analysis of these studies in this book goes hand-in-hand with the presentation of the latest research on the medical and epidemiological characteristics of the disease; its geographical origin; and its spread across Asia Minor, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. OLE J. BENEDICTOW is Professor of History, University of Oslo.
New research throws light on the nature of the disease, its origin, spread, mortality, and its impact on history.
New research throws light on the nature of the disease, its origin, spread, mortality, and its impact on history.
