The Great Influenza

By John M. Barry

Categories: History

John M. Barry's 2004 book tells the story of the 1918 flu pandemic, one of the deadliest in history, focusing on the United States. Barry traces how the virus may have emerged in Haskell County, Kansas, and spread through Army camps and troop movements during the First World War. He sets the epidemic against the history of American medicine and the scientists who fought it, and argues that the central lesson of 1918 is that those in authority must tell the truth.

Recommended by 4 people