Pandemic 1918: The Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History
German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders Grippe, but globally the pandemic gained the notorious title of 'Spanish Flu'. Nowhere escaped this common enemy: in Britain, 250,000 people died, in the United States it was 750,000, five times its total military fatalities in the war, while European deaths reached over two million. The numbers are staggering. And yet at the time, news of the danger was suppressed for fear of impacting war-time morale. Even today these figures are shocking to many - the war still hiding this terrifying menace in its shadow.
Behind the numbers are human lives, stories of those who suffered and fought it - in the hospitals and laboratories. Catharine Arnold traces the course of the disease, its origins and progress, across the globe via these remarkable people. Some are well known to us, like British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and writers Robert Graves and Vera Brittain, but many more are unknown. They are the doughboys from the US, gold miners in South Africa, schoolgirls in Great Britain and many others.
Published 100 years after the most devastating pandemic in world history, Pandemic 1918 uses previously unpublished records, memoirs, diaries and government publications to uncover the human story of 1918.
Catharine Arnold is the author of the much-acclaimed London quartet, a series about the dark side of the capital, consisting of Necropolis: London and its Dead, Bedlam: London and its Mad, City of Sin: London and its Vices and Underworld London: City of Crime and Punishment. Her first novel, Lost Time, won a Betty Trask Award. Catharine read English at the University of Cambridge and holds a further degree in psychology.
Original: $6.10
-65%$6.10
$2.13Product Information
Product Information
Shipping & Returns
Shipping & Returns
Description
German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders Grippe, but globally the pandemic gained the notorious title of 'Spanish Flu'. Nowhere escaped this common enemy: in Britain, 250,000 people died, in the United States it was 750,000, five times its total military fatalities in the war, while European deaths reached over two million. The numbers are staggering. And yet at the time, news of the danger was suppressed for fear of impacting war-time morale. Even today these figures are shocking to many - the war still hiding this terrifying menace in its shadow.
Behind the numbers are human lives, stories of those who suffered and fought it - in the hospitals and laboratories. Catharine Arnold traces the course of the disease, its origins and progress, across the globe via these remarkable people. Some are well known to us, like British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and writers Robert Graves and Vera Brittain, but many more are unknown. They are the doughboys from the US, gold miners in South Africa, schoolgirls in Great Britain and many others.
Published 100 years after the most devastating pandemic in world history, Pandemic 1918 uses previously unpublished records, memoirs, diaries and government publications to uncover the human story of 1918.
Catharine Arnold is the author of the much-acclaimed London quartet, a series about the dark side of the capital, consisting of Necropolis: London and its Dead, Bedlam: London and its Mad, City of Sin: London and its Vices and Underworld London: City of Crime and Punishment. Her first novel, Lost Time, won a Betty Trask Award. Catharine read English at the University of Cambridge and holds a further degree in psychology.
