Recommended Reading
If you have never read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, pick up a copy, or get one from the library.
Technically it is a science book, but it tells a version of the history of man on the planet. I read it years ago, but something about the bird/swine flu problems caused me to remember his treatment of the “Germs” in his title. He has a rather convincing explanation for why we are seeing these things, and why our relatively rapid world-wide travel system makes them so dangerous.
Something to think about.
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Another good book that’s worth rereading from time to time is the granddad of all disease theory of history books, William MacNeal’s Plagues and Peoples. You can argue about the details of the two books, but reading them will permanently change the way you look at history. They did for me.
The bubonic plague was easily as bad, if not worse than the Thirty Years War at reducing the population of Europe, and the effect of common European diseases on Native Americans, who had no immunity to them, is well documented.
Disease kills more people in war zones than weapons,