Review: The Great Influenza

[wshaffer]

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fascinating book that tackles a huge subject and occasionally threatens to escape from the author's control.

I'll admit that I was a bit nonplussed when, after a short introduction, this book plunged into a survey of the state of American medicine and of the general scientific knowledge of disease and its causes in the mid-1800s. However, this actually turns out to be one of the best parts of the book. In some ways, what Barry is writing here is a history of how medicine and public health actually put themselves on a scientific footing, and began to effectively tackle infectious disease. To some extent, the influenza epidemic of 1918 merely serves to illustrate how far they'd come, and how much progress had yet to be made.

While following this core storyline, Barry looks at a lot of other parts of the story: what it was like to live in cities in the grip of the epidemic, and how the virus travelled around the world. He even theorizes that the Treaty of Versailles might not have been so punitive towards Germany if President Wilson hadn't come down with influenza during negotiations, and thereafter capitulated to the French demands. It's an endless kaleidoscope of stories, facts, figures, and personalities, and it can be a challenge to keep it all straight.

And then there's kind of an odd epilogue, following up on the scientists who would eventually prove, in 1933, that influenza is a virus. Again, scientific biography is one of Barry's strong points, but it's an odd transition. Barry here raises the tantalizing question of why some scientists make great breakthroughs, while others who seem equally smart and equipped with opportunities never seem to get anywhere. It's an interesting question, but it almost seems to belong to a different book - a book in which Barry could treat it in greater length and detail.

This is a book that to some extent sacrifices telling a coherent narrative for being as comprehensive as possible. If you can cope with that, it's a great read.

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Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a book for me. I am inordinately fond of books of this sort. I loved Hans Zinsser's Rats, Lice, and History, and I liked the "germs" part of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel the best.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

If you like history-of-disease stuff, The Great Plague by Moote and Moote is fabulous -- it's a husband and wife pair, one specializing in infectious disease, the other in historical sociology, writing about the Great Plague of London in 1666. It, too, sacrifices coherent narrative for comprehensiveness; the text tries to proceed sort of chronologically, but keeps wandering outward to provide context, and some information ends up being repeated a tad too much. Having said that, I reiterate that it is fabulous.