Pandemic Obsession - How They Feature in our Popular Culture

Pandemic Obsession - How They Feature in our Popular Culture written by Stephen Basdeo and published by Pen & Sword Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 224

“Pestilence entered … The ordinary pursuits of society were paralysed; all previously-formed plans of happiness, business, trade, occupation, and domestic arrangement, were checked as cruelly and abruptly as if every principle of the human mind were in a moment subverted … The physicians saw that human aid was vain, and that destruction inevitably awaited all who approached the infected. Terrific mortality! Appalling scourge of the human race!” — George W.M. Reynolds

Throughout history humankind has faced a number of deadly pandemics and such diseases have left their mark in history books, fine art, novels, life writing, and newspapers. This book collects together writings from across the centuries which illuminate people’s experiences with plagues and pandemics. From Ancient Greece there is Thucydides on the Athenian Plague; Procopius gives his account of Plague of Justinian; also included is many more extracts of writings on plagues from medieval and early modern writers. Readers can enjoy several works of fiction including an abridged version of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), a reproduction in full of Jack London’s Scarlet Plague (1912), as well as short pandemic stories from Edgar Allan Poe, George W.M. Reynolds, Daniel Defoe, and William Harrison Ainsworth.

This book Pandemic Obsession looks at various pandemics throughout time from the Bubonic plague right up to Scarlet plague in 1912. The book looks at excerpts and passages written by famous authors of the time or from various news media of the time. It was interesting to see how a pandemic was seen and talked about around the time of each plague and help correspond with the most recent pandemic. I loved the front cover as it really stands out from the crowd. A quite interesting book certainly one to make you think and consider.