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The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history By John M. Barry ( Penguin Books )
Release Date: 2005-10-04
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $17.00
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Product Description
At the height of WWI, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.
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 The Great Influenza
I liked this book it is a big thick book that takes a long time to read. If you enjoy history and you know it repeats itself. It is an interesting book to buy.
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informative but "wordy" ( koscira )
This book contains some excellent information, but i would recommend the abridged version. I don't feel the personal lives & quirks of all of the scientists involved in the story added any insight to this pandemic.
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 Missed opportunity
To me, this book really represented a missed opportunity to tell a potentially fascinating story. I found *The Great Influenza* long, overwritten, repetitive, and, most important (as several have noted) telling only the American side of a worldwide pandemic. Sometimes, the author seemed to be so in love with a particular theme or trope that he strained the narrative beyond all reason to fit it in. One of the more egregious examples was the long tale, at the book's end, of the career decline and death of biologist Paul Lewis -- whose work at the time, in fact, was generally unrelated to influenza -- apparently solely so he could end the main text by metaphorically declaring Lewis (who actually died in Brazil of yellow fever) "the last victim of the great influenza."
While certain sections -- notably the ones focused on the actual operation of the virus and the factors underlying its virulence -- were well handled and interesting, and while clearly prodigious research was involved, in general I'm afraid I found the book shaggy, poorly organized, too narrowly focused on the American viewpoint, and ultimately unrewarding.
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More than just a history
There are a lot of good reviews describing this book, so I will just say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was difficult at times to track with the story because it weaves back and forth on itself so that you understand the whole story. Worth reading.
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A tremendous account of one of the worst health crises in modern history ( peacemover )
In "The Great Influenza," John Barry provides a fascinating, thorough, informative and accessible window into the great flu pandemic of 1918 that ravaged the United States and much of the western world. Barry deftly sets the background leading up to the outbreak. This includes the major figures and state of medicine during that pioneering era nearly 100 years ago.
Barry notes how, while a handful of physicians and scientists in the world, particularly in western Europe, knew of the germ and cellular theories, by enlarge, most of the medical community in the world still operated on a largely antiquated, inaccurate understanding of medicine and disease. He notes how, up until the late 19th century, almost anyone could get a medical degree and practice medicine, and only a handful of medical schools, like Harvard, and Johns Hopkins had a rigorously clinical model of medicine.
Barry traces the confluence of the developing understanding of disease and cellular theory in that day with the outbreak and rapid spread of the virulent influenza of 1918. Thousands of young adults were grouped together in very close quarters while training and preparing to deploy to World War I. This environment proved to be conducive to the rapid spread of a deadly strain of influenza that spread through military barracks, out to the surrounding community, on to much of the country, and eventually much of the western world in the course of a number of months.
As this alarming pattern of severe illness, and in many cases, death of the particularly young and old emerged, several medical leaders of the day, began to take action. This included the U.S. surgeon general and chief surgeon of the Army. Their proactive measures, including initiating quarantines, strict sanitation, and early, basic attempts at vaccination, while unable to prevent an epidemic, saved countless lives.
This was also a crucial turning point in American medicine, Barry points out, that led to a national and international movement to raise standards for medical training. An increased emphasis on clinical training and better understanding of cellular theory, viruses, and epidemiology also resulted. Medical care advanced by leaps and bounds as a result.
Still, the stories and chilling photos of hundreds upon hundreds of bodies being stacked in the streets and left in abandoned homes in major American cities at the height of the outbreak give one pause. In his epilogue, Barry also looks ahead to the next global pandemic from a perspective of not 'if' but rather 'when' it occurs. His predictions about the spread of virulent strains of flu, such as H151, as well as other multi-drug resistant organisms are eerily prescient given recent news of the increased prevalence of such viruses.
Overall Barry's book "The Great Influenza" is very readable, informative, engaging and an incredible work of historical and clinical scholarship. Very highly recommended!
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