This book fills a hole in historical analysis. Starting in 2004, I became convinced that most historians overfocused on social patterns in their analysis of history. Brian Fagan broadened that analysis with his examination of climate effects, and Pathogenesis has added a much needed facet to enable greater understanding of where we have been. The more we learn of the past, the more we understand the potential of the future. While I am hardly an infectious disease scholar, Pathogenesis fills an important space in historical study.

Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues is a fascinating book to read. Any readers who are history buffs will want to read this one.

Pathogenesis I fear falls into a category of book that I hate giving: boring. Jonathan Kennedy has great ideas that never seem to become interesting even if he is blending history and diseases.

I hate dogging this book but even a history buff like myself was bored to tears by Kennedy because zero humor or levity is brought into the story. I know it can sound weird as a criticism but even the darkest books cut the tension with some sort of levity.

Pathogenesis puts forth the argument that the trajectory of human migration and civilization is due to its interaction with bacteria and viruses. Kennedy traces how disease and immunological advantages affect civilizations across the globe and how they can be explanations for why some outcomes were more likely than others, as well as how it led to the rise and fall of certain religions, governments, and colonialism. Much of a population's immunity comes from either the local geography or the proximity to domesticated animals, which then determines the outcome when two different populations collide, with the population that has higher immunity or resistance likely surviving. There is also a link between public health and economic output, where investment in public health, vaccines, and sanitation generally leads to stronger economies and longer life expectancy. Overall, a fascinating look at how disease and viruses have led to many major global events that have altered the course of human history and how they continue to play out today, as exemplified in the response to Covid-19.

Instead of looking at human history through the lens of evolution or progress, Kennedy puts on a lens of pandemics. By examining our history through the lens of pathogens, we see how multiple factors came together to change the course of migration, wars, colonialism, and the modern era. This was a fascinating look at the world. It’s very high level, so there’s not a ton of depth into each of the periods that Kennedy examines, and occasionally he could get a bit lost in explaining all of the factors in an era, but it was an overall well-written and engaging history, shedding a light on the complicated relationship between humans and disease, and how we have been shaped by them.

This book was absolutely fascinating to me. I took Kennedy's central thesis to be that both the "Great Man" and "Class Struggle" approaches to history are reductionist, as evidenced by the substantial roles that epidemics have played in world history. I think he did an incredible job demonstrating this thesis in the first seven chapters. To give a very brief summary, he shows how epidemics helped determine the genetic make-up of humanity, engendered the switch from nomadic to agricultural society, weakened empires, bolstered religious movements, spurred the decline of feudalism, aided the colonization of the Americas, opened opportunity for the Haitian slave revolt, and more.

Then the author takes a turn in chapter eight. Rather than a further explication of how diseases have affected humanity's beliefs, conflicts, and politics, this chapter is a description of how global income inequality has negatively affected people's health -- especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Much in this chapter connects to themes in ideas in prior sections of the book, but it's much less history and much more political argument. Some of his arguments are well-supported by the history he lays out in the first seven chapters, while others seem to be little more than assertions that "something must be done." Whether the reader agrees or disagrees with the politics of this chapter, it seems to me the weakest part of the book.

In the end, I greatly enjoyed reading this book (especially the first half), and I've already recommended it to some other people. The biggest drawback is that the author seems to switch theses in the last chapter, but that complaint only applies to less than 15% of the whole.

[I received a free eBook from the publisher through NetGalley.]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Crown Publishing for an advanced copy of this book that looks at history of humans, and the microbes that influenced it.

The last few years have shown us that public health issues have much more of an effect on humans and our societies than most politicians, public thinkers and tech people do. Within a short time of the pandemic people saw there places in the social hierarchy change, a cashier in a bodega and a DoorDash driver suddenly became essential personal. Huge pieces of real estate were abandoned as jobs that needed foosball tables and a variety of breakfast cereals in the break room, could suddenly be done over Zoom. Humans found out that other people don't value them in the same way, ignoring masking, vaccines, again deciding that a minimum wage job was important, while others could stay inside. This has changed and us and will continue to change the society in many ways. I'd like to say better, but I doubt it. Disease and change is not new, though humans are always surprised how history repeats itself, never learning from the past. This book might make a lot of people think different. Jonathan Kennedy, professor at Queen Mary College in London has written a history of humanity, Pathogenesis:A History of the World in Eight Plagues which looks at the affect of disease on humans, how society changes, and how civilizations fall.

The book begins with an explanation of what microbes are, how the come about and how they travel. There is a also a brief history touching on the present day about how few people really look at diseases and how plagues have touched almost of the groups of people, in various ways. After the introduction the book is broken into 8 chapters, covering different times, Paleolithic, Neolithic, Medieval, Colonial and others. The chapters describe the age and the diseases and pandemics that were prevalent at the time, with descriptions of what brought the plague about, and why they stopped. Most will be familiar, a rogues galley of bubonic, typhus, sexual transmitted diseases, and sanitary diseases. Also, each chapter describes changes, small in some ways, with larger effects, of the ending of civilizations and ways of life, as shared in the Colonial chapter. The rise and fall of the Church, the rise and fall and rise again of science. Bringing sewers to London. Even the exploitation of first the Americas, and later Africa are described and shown.

A really fascinating, and yet sad book about how as much as we humans like to think we are doing so well, a simple cough could lead to the end. The book is extremely well written and well- researched with a lot of information on each page, and a different view brought to events that I had never really thought about. I enjoyed the Colonial and Medieval chapters quite a bit for this reason in that Kennedy mentions many events that I was familiar with, and yet presents them in different light, a microbe's eye view is a good way of putting it. Kennedy has a very good narrative sense and even if a chapter has to jump around a bit to explain things, which is very rare, Kennedy never loses the flow of the history and neither will readers. A different kind of history of the world.

Recommended for those who are both into history, and have recently interested in public health issues. This is a very well written book, that I am sure will be the start of a lot of conversation, probably a few unpleasant ones. A nice gift for Mother's or Father' day, especially if the parent one is buying for enjoys different looks at familiar history.

Kennedy synthesizes a vast body of work to examine the influence of pathogens and disease on human development. He gives a brief overview of major instances, from pre-history competition among homo sapiens and other groups to health disparity among various groups during the covid19 epidemic.

If I do a sweeping epidemics course, this is a great start as a textbook. It's very readable.and I would highly recommend it to casual readers.

That said, it is not perfect. The author has some ethnocentric biases that pop up occasionally. He also seems to follow a progressive view of history, although that is mitigated at the end by speculation regarding China's role in the world on one hand and bacterial resistance to antibiotics on the other.

Ever since 2020, I feel that readers of books that mention or discuss plagues, diseases, or even global catastrophes, are able to connect with the material better than ever before. Shaping a world history from the lens of great plagues, is I believe, a product of this changed view. Kennedy pulls it off remarkably well too, and readers will find events that they may already be familiar with, suddenly become unfamiliar, and this is where Kennedy's guiding hand throughout the text becomes essential in re-familiarizing the reader with the events from this new lens.

If you are interested in medical history, this book was really engaging. I found it very enlightening and would love for everyone to read it. I think the author did an excellent job of arguing that much of history was been more influenced by disease then heroic actions.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley for my honest review.