Plagues and Peoples

AP World History Review: informative

William McNeill's Plagues and Peoples is an interesting combination of both science and history, something not seen very often. Throughout the book, he analyzes the effects various diseases have on a region's history. He accomplishes this by traveling through the years, beginning with the first hunters and going well into the 1900s. In addition, this publication includes a preface where McNeill addresses AIDS, a disease named after the original publication of Plagues and Peoples. Overall, my favorite chapter in the book was The Impact of the Mongol Empire because it shows the Black Plague in incredible detail, describing the deepest origins and various paths it could have taken on its way to Europe. The author compares it to modern times and tells of various rodents that still have the disease present in them. He tells that the mortality rate back then varied from 30 to 90 percent, but even in present day this has only changed a little, 60 to 70 percent as a result of antibiotics. By comparing it to modern days, McNeill makes it easier for the reader to relate and allows the reader to understand what the Plague must have been like when it first reached Europe. Overall, this was a wonderful read that shed light on history in a whole new way. After reading Plagues and Peoples, one will understand that there is more to history than politics and religion. Diseases had an astonishing impact on a culture and the way it prospered.

AP World History Review: Thought-Provoking

Plagues and Peoples is a book that answers just as many questions as it stimulates. McNeill looks at world diseases from a different perspective, making it thought-provoking. He shows that people and disease are directly related in a complex biological balance. He also shows that diseases were not just road blocks in human development, but something that completely shaped societies and history. He has an interesting perspective on humans as well, saying that we are also parasites, not just victims. I would recommend this book because it offers an interesting viewpoint to world history. It is sometimes difficult to follow, but McNeill gets his points across well. He realized that he had limited information, and pointed it out throughout the book. All in all, it was a good read that gave good theories that keep you thinking for days on end.

Ap World History Review Plagues and Peoples is very well written for Intellectual Stimulation

Plagues and Peoples is an enlightening novel in which Willian Hardy McNeil describes the way how different plagues and pandemics affected different time periods and the different civilazations within those times. These include 500 B.C.to 1200 A.D,. 1200-1500, and 1500-1700. William also went into specific detail about how each different ailment came into play and clearly showed why each one spread like it did due to the different elements in the regions. He does a great job getting his points across.

I highly recomend this book to people rangeing from the upper teens and up especially if you are in a World History class or a history buff. He really shows you that plauges and other illnesses had a huge role in many different civilazations. I really enjoyed this book and feel that I gained alot of knowledge from it and got new insights. So pick up your copy today of Plagues and People by William Hardy McNeil.

AP World History Review: Information Overload

Plagues and Peoples is a book for those interested in the developments of disease and the effect on the environments and lives of humans and animals alike. McNeill fully describes the social, economic, and political impact of devastating plagues to once thriving civilizations. He convinces the reader of possible and logical arguments, although there is uncertainty in recorded history. In his evidence the reader can clearly see how a society that a person lives in affects how susceptible they are to disease. For example, over-exhausted, isolated, farm workers are more likely to contract some form of sickness, rather than wealthy, urban city-goers. McNeill does address that these epidemics also had a positive impact. Religions thrived during times of plague, having their own explanation of the random outbreaks of disease, and an opportunity of salvation.
McNeill did a nice job in writing an informative and educational book. It was so informative, that it is almost overwhelming, changing how the reader once thought of how civilizations developed and existed. One of the negatives, in my opinion, was that it seemed like this book was written for others of historical expertise. It is more of a book that I can see scholars chatting about at lunch, rather than a high school student reading and being able to grasp every well-researched detail. I fully recommend this book to students with an interest in history, but prepared to read through very compact text to get the knowledge that you seek.

Interesting Viewpoint on Plagues

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy history. It gives very descriptive viewpoints about the parasitic developments throughout history. McNeill gives well-described facts about the plagues over the centuries and their impact on both the human and the animal species. McNeill reveals how parasites have developed and changed the species around them throughout years. He takes us back to the different plagues that happened throughout the years and describes how the parasitic infections changed the lives of people and how they lived. The parasitic invasions changed political, economic, agricultural, and social viewpoints in the different civilizations that the plagues won over. McNeill did an excellent job providing the details that we miss out on in some of our history books.

Bland but worth a look

This book was worth buying. However, I could have lived without the old supposition that pestilence is the only reason western culture emerged as dominant; but in the PC age I guess this is to be expected. Yawn.

Causitive Impact on History

McNeil offers a look at a significant component of past human history with hints at future impacts. He presents macro and micro parasitic ravages from an objective viewpoint. While admitting the absence of certainty in the historical record, he convincingly argues for logical possibilities to complete the record. The work contributes a valuable look at the impact, physically and psychologically, of many contagion and humankind¿s attempts to cope with the results. Epidemics of disease have contributed to cataclysmic changes in the course of history causing abrupt demographic change. McNeil explores the evolution of science and health services to meet and alter the impact of infectious disease as well as the application of local cultural followings that sported success with some vectors of infection. Increased understanding of the past and a good read too.

Plagues and their effect on human development.

Unlike 'Plague Time' and 'Parasite Rex' which look at the evolutionary success of diseases from a biological and behavioral viewpoint, 'Plagues and People' (as well as 'Guns, Germs and Steel') address how diseases have affected human development and human conflict. When one learns how the native American Indians were decimated by European diseases to which Europeans had already developed immunity, one suddenly sees the 'conquistadoras' in a very different light. Similarly, Europe's general failure to successfully colonize West and Central Africa was largely due to diseases which resulted in a rate of attrition that's so astounding that one wonders why the Europeans ever went there.

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