OMG this is so good! I learned a lot! I was talking to my friend about plantation and cholera for hours after reading this. You absolutely need to read this one.

plagues are probably something you don’t ever want to think about again in a post-pandemic world, but this book takes us into history to look at the who, what, where, when, why of it all. the systematic othering of groups tends to breed paranoia, isolation, and blame. the post-colonial world tends to favor a more politically fraught response to disease outbreak. more than just covid, this book goes into cholera, spanish flu, sleeping sickness, ebola, and so much more. it’s less a book about a history of THE world and more about the history of OUR world as we can understand it in our worst moments. all in all a hard read, but worth it.

I went into this read expecting a completely different book. This was more a collection of essays on the social world around the diseases affecting a specific group of people at the time. There was more discussion on how a person's race and social standing effected their chances of recovering than a discourse on the science of the diseases.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The history of humanity is intertwined with bacteria and viruses. Most death has always come from some kind of infection. And we can learn a lot about human history from how humans have approached infections.

In A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19, Edna Bonhomme considered how doctors addressed cholera on the slave plantations in the American South, how Europeans considered Africa as a “laboratory” to learn about sleeping sickness and the like, how H1N1 spread around the world in 1918, how inmates worked together to support inmates with HIV/AIDS when everyone else would not, how Ebola was, or was not, well managed in Liberia, and how Liberia was thus viewed by the rest of the world, how four different people from different situations managed the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, and the deplorable conditions and illnesses which attend to them in Haitian prisons.

In this way we learn a lot about society: who is valued and who is not; who is deemed “the other” and concern about contagion; the limitations of humanitarianism; a lot of the ugliness of a supremacist posture.

This is not a systematic history of the world or a systematic exploration into plagues, but the author does well at demonstrating what we can learn about ourselves from these experiences of plague and how they were addressed.

This is a rough read because of the horrific realities of the subject matter. It is critical in understanding our society and the inherent racism and classism that runs through everything.

Edna Bonhomme's A History of the World in Six Plagues uses six plagues as an entry point for exploring different facets of society and their inequalities. It is not a straightforward history of sickness, outbreak, death and recovery, instead Bonhomme uses the plagues to discuss the way systems of oppression have operated, such as chapter one's focus on the treatment of Cholera to enslaved Africans. As stated in the introduction (6% in the NetGalley Reader) "The main argument of this book is that pandemics start small, grow large due to negligence, and leave rot behind that we generally don't bother to clean up before the next pandemic arrives." Bonhomme approaches this topic by blending the history of science with a background in biology and public health, alongside Bonhomme's personal background as a descendant of a Haitian working-class family.

Each plague has its own chapter, with one extra, as well as a prologue and postscript. Chapters begin by detailing a specific disease, pandemic or illness before transitioning to discuss a particular group or even individual. For example, chapter 3 is focused on the early 20th century influenza outbreak and spends the most time detailing Virginia Woolf's experience of the sickness. The plagues used to frame discussions are: cholera, Sleeping Sickness, Spanish Flu, HIV/AIDS, Ebola and COVID-19.

This is no simple medical history, instead it seeks to more deeply engage with how sickness and disease re-enforce or exacerbate social divisions, with those most in need left or restricted to their own devices. Bonhomme reflects on a childhood experience of being confined to a hospital with typhoid fever as well as the COVID-19 Pandemic Lock-downs.

Who gains from sickness? Frequently the rich, why else does sickness always have the possibility of bankruptcy in the United States.

Recommended to readers or researchers of health and medicine, cultural analysis, or the role of disease or pandemics in colonialism and capitalism.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for A History of the World in Six Plagues by Edna Bonhomme.

Overall, this was a okay book. I did learn a few things It just felt very discombobulated and it was hard to get through. The commentary strayed pretty frequently and I was left wondering what the original point was. I did agree with most of the commentary but would have found it more interesting if it didn't differ so much from what I thought the book would be. I'm working on my masters of public health right now and was looking to learn more about plagues/pandemics and how they were dealt with policywise, including how the policies affected people. And while the majority did cover that, there were also so many parts that just weren't relevant to me at all, like the pages and pages on Virginia Woolf.. The layout of the chapters tended to be a well researched, but brief summary of a disease and then that was followed by taking the least interesting/important part of it and doing pages of commentary about it.

Overall, 2 Stars.

I think from the very start, I was hooked in how careful Edna Bonhomme uses language specifically to articulate how class and colonialism impacts (still to this day) disease-- the spread of disease, the treatment of disease, and the harsh reality of perpetual inequity in healthcare for different bodies. It's an interesting way to look at a portion of history of the world through both globalization and the diseases that have continually plagued humanity in various forms.

I think if you're looking for an intense medical history type of book, you'd be disappointed-- this is more about the socioeconomics of disease across time and how they've interacted with colonialist structures still in place in the current dynamics of the world. This is a very political book-- as healthcare truly is, but I was surprised when I expected to just hear about how crazy diseases have changed through time. I am not that upset by my misunderstanding of the content because I thoroughly enjoyed the content of the book.

Even with a misleading title, this was an amazing book.

The premise of A History of the World in Six Plagues is important, and the connections it draws between disease and systemic inequality are valuable. However, the execution felt repetitive, and at times, the analysis lacked the depth I was hoping for. While the book raises crucial points, it didn’t offer much new insight beyond what has already been explored in similar works.

The premise of this book is very compelling. I learned a lot of good information about injustices in medical treatment throughout history. I do think that I would have enjoyed more science being blended into the book! In many ways, I think the title of the book gives the wrong impression. It is about so much more than specific plagues but rather about the medical treatment of the oppressed. I hope that this book can get in the hands of the right readers!

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical perspective on the inequalities that the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare. Highly recommend.

In "A History of the World in Six Plagues", Edna Bonhomme has examined both the sociological origins of plague response as well as the sociological impact of those plague responses among a particular subset of the sufferers in each presented situation. I understand how many reviewers expected the book to focus on the purely medical/scientific aspects of these plagues, but that misunderstanding of the focus of the book should not be laid upon the author. This is a sociology text not an epidemiology one. The bias they want to ascribe to Bonhomme only arises because they came to the book with preconceived expectations about what the book was going to be about.

In any event, the book does a very competent job in explaining the basics of the plagues being examined with a thumbnail view of the sociopolitical situation surrounding the population Bonhomme chooses in order to showcase the effects the plague and medical response to it upon that given population. Bonhomme has chosen to focus on populations she has a personal connection to which does tend to lead her astray by bringing a bit too much of her personal responses upon the populations she is examining. Still, she provides a very well researched and well cited narrative focused on using primary sources to provide their unvarnished observations, thoughts, and responses to these plagues. Bonhomme's care and concern for the people who experienced these plagues is evident and presents a strong theme of never forgetting the importance of the individual when examining such widespread tragedies.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this advance copy.

Edna Bonhomme attempts to view plagues through the lens of race and socioeconomics. Each chapter started with an outline of the plague, but she often got caught up in her message and failed to return to the plague. Although I had high hopes for this book, it fell flat and often got lost in tangents. Her main message, black people were often more negatively effected by plagues is well-known. By bringing in her own experiences, Bonhomme took away from the stories she told to illustrate her arguments.

At this point, there are a gazillion A History of the World in [insert number] [insert plural noun]. Because I enjoy reading history of medicine, despite my doubts about an overused approach, I requested review copy of this title. I am very glad I did.

What I particularly like about A History of the World in Six Plagues is the approach it takes. The focus here isn't medical research or brilliant scientists or rich patrons who funded the scientists—it's marginalized people, the disproportionate impact plagues have had on them, and the legacy left behind by plagues. If you're interested in issues of social justice this is a read you will find very valuable. Bonhomme blows open the heroic tales we expect and instead focuses on the struggle for survival and how people have accomplished it against the odds.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

My thanks to both NetGalley and Atria/One Signal Publishers for an advance copy of this book that looks at how the polices that medical and governments put into place to deal with epidemics and outbreaks, show the lack of lessons learned from past incidents, making things sometimes much worse, and hurting those who are already at the margins of survival.

Health issues are a political issue, one that we seem unable to deal with either controlling the price of, dispensing aid, or how far a government can go to help, or in some cases hinder people. Health is also a way of controlling people. One can't go far in life if one is sick constantly. Health is also a question of bias. Poor people have disease. The other has disease. We can't let them in here, because we can't let out pure children get sick. Everyone becomes an expert, and those who have trained, or have experienced diseases and outbreaks, even prevention are ignored. And people die. A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19 by educator and writer Edna Bonhomme is a study of how the ways of dealing with diseases, from ignoring to containment, created many lessons, most of them ignored, that still continue to hurt people today.

The book begins with the author discussing being ill as a child, with typhoid. The author spent months in a hospital, trying to get healthy, and not making others ill. The author is also of Haitian background and as this was the time of HIV and Haitians were being used as scapegoats for many ills, the author has a familiarity with the way that health issues can be used to control, and cut-off people, with the excuse of helping others. One thing that author makes clear is that no one seems to learn anything from outbreaks or pandemics. There is always the same fear, the same problems, the same deniers, and the fears of treatment. And of finding someone, usually marginalized people to blame.

The book looks at a variety of different outbreaks from Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola, and COVID-19 and looks at fear, discrimination and lack of empathy affects many different people. I was amazed as I read that almost everything came down to it being someone' fault. China, poor black slaves, Haitians, gays, dirty people. This looks at particular people and is not a book that covers the history of the pandemics, just how these dealing with diseases reflect the feelings of many in government. Which continues today. As we memory-hole Covid, and continue the same failed polices, insurance based on jobs, a lack of preventative health programs, the author suggests that we are just making time until the next big pandemic, and how many rights might be sacrificed, and more money and control gained by select people. A interesting book, one that left me thinking about a lot of different things, none of them good.

I think the editors did a great disservice to this book by giving it a title that is clearly evocative of another recently published and well-received work, "Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues. Aside from the title, these two books have very little in common. "Pathogenesis" is a typical popular-science book about how infectious diseases have influenced human civilization (and was conceived as a much-needed update to another famous work, "Plagues and People"). Edna Bonhomme's book is more of a personal essay, focusing on issues of identity. As she writes in the prologue:

„As a historian of science trained in biology and public health, I analyze those histories with acuity, and as a working-class person of Haitian descent, I approach pandemics with compassion”.

I agree with other reviewers that this book was too political and biased for my taste. But I guess I was misled by the title, I suppose for some people it can be a very rewarding read.

Thanks to the publisher, Atria Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this book is misleading and most certainly not a history of the world in six plagues. I was expecting a chronological account of society and disease over time, instead I feel like this book was lacking scope and filled with personal anecdotes. While the historical elements of the disease origins and spread are well researched and clearly explained, the author undermines herself by then discussing in great detail some singular element or a single effected group for the rest of the chapter. Overall, I'm sure there's an audience for a book like this, of people concerned with how disease shapes marginalized communities and how disease control and prevention measures are rooted in colonialism. It's certainly an important topic, but it was gravely misrepresented with the current title, which caused great disappointment.

The idea of this book is basically an informative one. But as a study of the causes and how epidemics spread Bonhomme has let her personal opinions affect the way these diseases are presented. The way she presented the HIV/Aids disease section spends more time on her complaints as to how her friends in Hatian and American were treated (or not treated) is the larger part of this section. If you want to turn this into a socialogical polemic, be my guest but don't try to pass it off as a history.

When it comes to discussing Haiti, she never discusses how (or explains) the disease there exploded as compared to how the disease was handled by the other community on the Island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic. The DR exists in the same area as Haiti but seems to be able to concentrate onn the healthcare of their nation without blamining the occrance of the disease on the USA. Having moved from Haiti, then the USA and now Germany, she seems to think every problem in the World has to be solved by the US.

Personally I find it a little comical, that she choses to live in a country that suffers from racism, and is only eighty years away from a government that murdered it;s own citizens for being homosexual, mentally ill or physically deformed.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This was not the book I expected to read. I expected more information of how each of those 6 plagues effected their victims, what sorts of care they got, and what percentage died, along with any public health (as it existed in the time and place) measures were attempted. Instead, I got a lot of sociology and discussions of racism and sexism. I do not dispute that racism, sexism, and nationalism play a key part in stemming disease, along with wealth disparity and non-white over-representation in prisons – a petri dish for any contagious disease. I expected the book to focus on the diseases and good and bad attempts at determining their cause and cures.

There were many infamous plagues throughout history that were left out, including the Justinian Plague in the 6th century.

There is a great deal about the medicalization of blackness, or non-whiteness. There is evidence of sexism within medicine, as evidenced by who drugs are tested on, the vast differences in how men and women are treated at hospitals when having heart attacks. The sociology is important, but I was looking to read of the science of the diseases.

I thought a better job could have been done with the racial protests over such things as the George Floyd murder protests during Covid-19. That was one thing that some white racists used to show that it’s not a real “thing”, as no Covid outbreaks were reported from these political actions. Perhaps more could have been said about that?

Still, it’s very showing how history rhymes with itself, in how some ebola deniers existed just as how there are Covid deniers now. They’re in a different place, in a different time, but it’s something “they” came up with, and resistance to vaccines. It’s notable that distrust of public health goes along with nationalism. The obsession with monkey meat and other bush meat in Ebola is the same as the current obsession with Haitians eating dogs and cats as an attempt to "other-ize".

The author has a "different" writing style, and I found it detracting in places, to the point where it lost my interest a few times.

I thought that this book could have been great. I learned during COVID that for various reasons, racialized communities fared far worse than non-racialized ones and I wanted to learn more about this for other epidemics/pandemics. But I found that there was not a lot of info on the actual bugs/diseases, for example, I learned more about Virginia Woolf than about influenza in the influenza chapter. I also disliked the writing style which I found overflowery to the point where having to parse sentences interfered with pacing. The only worthwhile chapter I read was about trypanosomiasis. I stopped reading after the chapter on HIV. Thank you to Netgalley and Atria/One Signal Publishers for the advance reader copy.