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| The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history | 
 enlarge | Author: John M. Barry
Publisher: Penguin Books
Discount Category: Book
Selling Price: $17.00
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Customer Ratings:  178 comments
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 546
Shipping Weight (pounds): 1.2
Dimensions (inch): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0143036491
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.51809041
EAN: 9780143036494
Publication Date: October 4, 2005
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 Interesting January 4, 2009
It is interesting. However, the author belittles the Public Health Service labs as wasting time investigating Bayer asprin as a possible agent of germ warfare. This was a very real possiblity and not hysterical fear-mongering. Bayer chemists were the inventors of chlorine gas. In fact, during WWII Bayer (as part of IG Farben) supplied Mengele with drugs to test on concentration victims!
More people should have listed to the PHS.
 Terrifying September 1, 2008
Once upon a time I read The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story, a book about emergent viruses like ebola, then read Stephen King's The Stand, which painted a graphic picture of life during and after a deadly plague. I thought this was the most terrifying combination of books I could read. I was wrong.
The Great Influenza is more blood-curdling than all that. And John Barry keeps repeating "and it was just influenza."
If we count every single AIDS fatality and add to them every single person infected with HIV, the count (summed over nearly a quarter century) is still less than the body count of the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Barry paints horrifying pictures of the suffering, but also develops the history of scientific medicine in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
He connects a lot of interesting dots, too, although he makes clear what is speculative. Had it not been for the influenza pandemic, there is a reasonably good chance that the German offensive during the summer of 1918 would have succeeded, and WWI would have been a bloody draw. Woodrow Wilson suffered from influenza (influenza can cause brain damage) and then reversed himself on holding out for a just peace (thereby laying the foundation for WWII).
One of the doctors who was trying to discover the cause of the flu epidemic kept digging away at perplexing problems. His research began in 1918 and culminated in the early 1940s with the discovery that desoxyribonucleic acid was responsible for transmitting genetic traits. He was up for a lifetime achievement Nobel in 1944, but that was retracted because this research was so controversial. Not until 1955 did Watson and Crick get the Nobel for describing the structure of DNA - which they could not have done without Avery's tireless and meticulous research.
It was a great read. It's also the last of my books carried over from last year. One thing's for dang sure, I'm gonna be getting my flu shots each year!!!
Great history of medicine and the early 20th Century July 25, 2008
Although I purchased this book a couple of years ago, I hadn't gotten to it until just now. I moved it to the top of my To Read list after finishing The Last Town on Earth, which is a fictionalized account of the 1918 flu. I wasn't expecting the detailed history of how our medical profession modernized, and the history of the origins of Johns Hopkins, although I was pleasantly surprised to find it here. I also found the general policies instituted by the Wilson administration, utterly suppressing free speech and any discord about the war very interesting. The only problem I had with the book was excessive repetiveness -- sometimes I wondered if I were somehow re-reading a page I had read before, as descriptions or quotations were restated verbatim in several parts of the book. There were also excessive descriptions of similar events in different towns that didn't truly add to the book's point -- the impact and experience of the 1918 flu. Certain parts were reminiscent of The Coming Plague (another book which I highly recommend), and if you enjoyed that book, you will enjoy this one as well. I am very glad to have the knowledge gained by reading this book, and the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was the repetiveness of many of its points -- the book could have easily been 100 pages shorter with some good editing.
A Hot Read July 7, 2008
A detailed look at the horrible influenza epidemic that decimated not only the United States but most of the world in 1918, killing tens of millions and sickening many more. An excellent job of explaining the biological and medical complexities of the disease, detailing the history of often shoddy medical education in the United States, and relating the Spanish flu's human and emotional toll through vivid anecdotes of personal hardship and horror. The book reads well as a medical detective story and history, and also presents a useful lesson on the falsehoods routinely issued by government leaders and newspapers in the United States in a misguided effort to keep morale "positive," theoretically to help the war effort.
The Great Influenza June 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this comment useful.
I liked this book it is a big thick book that takes a long time to read. If you enjoy history and you know it repeats itself. It is an interesting book to buy.
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