Plagues Upon the Earth

“A New Statesman Essential Non-Fiction Book of 2021”
“Winner of the PROSE Award in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Association of American Publishers”
“A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year”
”[A] superb new history of infectious disease. Be so grateful you live now!”—David Frum
“Magisterial… . [Harper’s] mastery of the science is only matched by the ease of his prose. If I were to nominate a book of the year, it would be this one.”—Andrew Sullivan, The Dishcast
”[A] sweeping masterpiece… . It’s difficult for me to think of anyone who will not find something eye-opening and enlightening in the pages of this comprehensive, beautifully written and eloquent book.” * Forbes *
“Plagues Upon the Earth is a remarkable achievement.”—Talha Burki, The Lancet
“This magnificent book stood out as much for its nuance and academic rigour as it did for its readability.” * Inquisitive Biologist *
“An ambitious, engaging, and unified history of humanity’s interaction with infectious disease.”—Gregory J. Morgan, Science
“By integrating history, demography, economics, evolutionary biology and genomics into a seamless narrative, [Harper] does something that I, for one, have never seen before done so eloquently or persuasively: he demonstrates that any thorough understanding of health requires the kind of sweeping perspective that the humanities offers.”—Steve Mintz, Inside Higher Ed
“Comprehensive.”—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
“A remarkable accomplishment that weaves together microbiology, history, and economics to understand the role of diseases in shaping human history. Harper, an established historian known for his first three books on Rome and late antiquity, has an impressive command of virology, bacteriology, and parasitology as well as history and economics. In Plagues Upon the Earth, he explains all of these clearly and with many arresting turns of phrase and insights.”—Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution
“Well-conceived. … [Kyle] Harper combs through the literature of history, economics, epidemiology, and other disciplines to deliver a solid study of the role of infectious disease in the human story… . Harper’s long-view study is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on epidemic disease.” * Kirkus Reviews *
“This is a solid book, superbly referenced and interdisciplinary, covering disease from pre-human origins to the present, and making extensive use of published DNA comparisons and descriptions of plagues by historical observers.” * Choice *
“Completing the reading of this book leaves one with more than a feeling of satisfaction. Admiration for a major task that was written in an engaging style that retains a facile elegance throughout its 700 pages, that presents comprehensive and detailed information as though it were the sort of material that readers come across every day, is what one might not expect, but welcomes, in a serious work of this size.”—Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective
“This timely work is the book of extraordinary brilliance and scope and the most significant in the field since William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples from the mid-1970s.”—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer
“Magisterial.” * Prospect *
“Plagues Upon the Earth is a highly provoking and enjoyable read. It shows that our success as a species is equally paralleled to the success of pathogens”—Makayla Alderson Fox, World History Encyclopedia

Kyle Harper is professor of classics and letters at the University of Oklahoma. His books include The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton) and From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity. He lives in Moore, Oklahoma.

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