The Great Influenza

The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

By: John M. Barry

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The number one New York Times best seller.

In 1918, the world faced the deadliest pandemic in human history. What can the story of the so-called Spanish Flu teach us about the fight against present day crises and how to prepare for future outbreaks?

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 24 months than AIDS 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 of science and epidemic disease.

Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the aftermath of Covid-19 and future pandemics looming on the horizon.

©2004 John M. Barry (P)2020 Penguin Audio

2.5

I should know the focus in this book was US. I was expecting a more global book/approach and I did not get it. Still good book to read despite the repetitions and, in many ocassions, bad structure of the narrative. It was published before Covid19 and that gives a different value to the book, in particular for chapters talking about the future. Chapter 4 and Afterwords are the key chapters if you want to know about Influenza. It shocked to me how obvious was for many "people" what was coming. The rest of the book is about how NA confronted the pandemic (or just not confronted, specially in some states), US medicine state before, during and after pandemic and how politicians are key in managing pandemics. Specifically interesting is the US propaganda machinery used during the war to suppress any information about the influenza pandemic that cost millions of lives. (pure propaganda that will make Goebbels smile and McCarthy impressed). Another point that has puzzled me is the lack of (or deeper) mention in history books and literature to this event that cost millions of lives. Just one paragraph in history books and no literature at all as I recollect from school. Anyway, plenty similarities with our current pandemic and from some figures the statement "It is just Influenza." Defenetly a lesson not learnt.