Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues
Produktbeskrivelse
A sweeping examination of how germs have played a starring role in the most significant transformations in history, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the creation of world religions and the birth of capitalism. According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, to actions undertaken individually and collectively that have changed the arc of history. In this revelatory book, sociologist and public health professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the peddlers of the exceptionalism myth massively overestimate the role that reason plays in social change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires. Drawing on the latest research in genetics, economics, sociology, and anthropology, Pathogenesis explores eight outbreaks of infectious disease that made the modern world. Take the rise of Christianity. When a wave of deadly pandemics swept through the Roman Empire in the third century, there were only a small number of
