The Great Influenza

The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

By: John M. Barry

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, 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 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 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 between modern science and epidemic disease.

Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza weaves together multiple narratives, with characters ranging from William Welch, founder of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, to John D. Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson. Ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, this crisis provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.

©2004, 2005 John M. Barry (P)2006 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Monumental...powerfully intelligent...not just a masterful narrative...but also an authoritative and disturbing morality tale." (Chicago Tribune)

"Easily our fullest, richest, most panoramic history of the subject." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Hypnotizing, horrifying, energetic, lucid prose...." (Providence Observer)

A warning that should have been heeded

this is an amazing book, talking about a scary time in our history-100 years ago mainly.. very well researched and presented, with lots of facts and figures. very well done history and very relevant for our time today- we can get through this and we need to prepare better.

Fascinating

Well researched and well written, Barry tells not just the story of influenza, but describes other relevant history, like the type of training doctors had in that time period. There are many prophetic statements made in this book, published in 2004, that cast an eerie feeling over today’s coronavirus pandemic (although coronavirus is different than influenza).

The Big Picture Kind I’d Book

This book is most excellent. It gives you not just the story of the Pandemic of 1918-1919 but the social, political, and medical history. I found this book very informative! Just one point, the IWW is not the International Workers of the World, it was the Industrial Workers of the World.

Great book, I highly recommended it!

Must listen to for today's pandemic

I thought Scott Bricks narration was enthralling and caught the spirit of this detailed book. John Barry did his homework on this book and dug deep into the history of medicine and the pandemic. It is to bad that Trump is ignoring the facts of this virus. He is lying to the people just like Willson did. The Republicans need to wake up and listen to this book or read it. This is an important book for our times. It will help you understand what is going on and prepare you for the second wave.

There are good things about this book

And not so good things.
The rather turgid, dramatic prose was not one of the good things. It seemed to endlessly build toward a climax which never happened.
The obsessive focus on the personalities of the scientists working on influenza and closely related problems, and the psychodrama of their interactions, was not completely uninteresting but ultimately led nowhere.
The endless recitation of numerical records and statistics was numbing. The author seemed to recognize this, and to juice it up over and over projected the percentage numbers into current population numbers, as if bigger numbers would be more interesting, which they were not.
The best things in this book were not actually about influenza. The author paints a vivid picture of the pathetic state of medicine in the 1800’s and its dramatic transformation over a few decades to something we would recognize today as medical science. I found his description of how science had undermined faith in old medical practices (bleeding, mustard plasters, purgatives) long before it came up with anything better to do convincing and insightful. I also found the section about Woodrow Wilson and the Versailles conference fascinating.
One other insight he offered which I found most interesting was that the influenza epidemic produced no great literature, that the many important authors who lived through it just didn’t write about it. I think there are reasons for that, and they are closely related to the weaknesses of this book. It is very difficult to write about something so big, so sprawling and ungraspable, something that starts slowly, builds up gigantically and then peters out, something that is somehow so profoundly meaningless. The author gave it a good try, and despite its shortcomings I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the pandemic and it’s historical setting.

Amazing

So relevant in 2020, of course. A must. Great narration and story. Highly recommended. One of the best books I’ve listened to.

Fatal History Repeats Itself...

Great read and new take on 1918 Influenza pandemic with lessons for today's COVID-19 outbreak. This is one threat we must prepare to address sooner vs. later.

Outstanding

This is a great book with outstanding narration. It is a combination of the history of the flu, the medical profession and of America itself. Some parts of the material could have been dry, but the narrator made it interesting throughout. I highly recommend this audiobook.

The crystal ball into the future

Excellent narrative of the 1918 flu epidemic background of the medical establishment they must reading for every healthcare professional and Layman

This is a must read for 2020

This book has absolutely fascinated me. I can’t believe the parallels of our day and can’t stop talking about this book. My 93 year old grandma just told us about our great great uncle who served in WWI, came down with the flu on his trip home, died, and his family was too afraid to bury his body when it finally arrived home. My grandpa was later named after that uncle. Everyone needs to listen to this. We must journal our experiences and not let our children or grandchildren forget what life was like during a global pandemic.