The Influenza Pandemic of 1918: A Look at the Great Flu Outbreak

agamer: My Grandparents went through the 1918 flu and never talked about it. it seems that was the way with most people of that era. So to read about it was interesting and terrifying thinking of all they went through. We at least had the hope of a vaccine. They had nothing and this flu hit young adults in their prime and children. No wonder the governments of today tried to quarantine people and mandated vaccines. The hospitals were overwhelmed in 1918 and in our time as well. Fascinating read that is easy to understand. Everyone needs to read this book.

Canada on Jun 18, 2022

mcentegart: Very well researched and written.

Canada on Jul 30, 2021

Elizabeth Rose: For those who are unfamiliar with how influenza functions, both in the body and in society, this book is a good introduction. It's history of the 1918 pandemic is also very good, albeit succinct, given the scope of the material. Crosby, who wrote the original history back in the 1980s, is referenced often.

The early efforts to find and interpret the genetic code are also fascinating to me, especially as biomolecular and genetic science have advanced significantly in 22 years. (For example, there is a reference made to a gene editor - a predecessor to CRISPr - but it is made as an aside, rather than reflecting the significant role gene editors have today in genetic analysis.) It was no doubt breaking ground in 1999, revealing the state of the art for the layperson, but now it serves as a fascinating snapshot to a piece of the scientific history that helped advance us into the Covid-19 era of scientific inquiry, when influenza virus is still a concern, but one of now several different zoonotic viruses about which we must be vigilant.

I deducted a star because the book takes a couple of - in my opinion - unnecessarily long tangents, even for 1999. One involved 1976...

United States on Feb 22, 2021

BradleyK: First of all, Gina Kolata is marvolous scicene writer. I have been reading her articles in the New York Times for years. This book gives a perspective on the 1918 flu that is defferent from other books I have read about the 1918 flu. She writes, basically a summary of the flu, and then writes about the lack of historians writings about it because they thought is was so horrible. But then she writes about the great swine flu debacle during President Ford's Adminstration and the implications of swine flu in general. Then she tell the story about a long ago decades atempt to revover the actual 1918 flu virus and map its genome and ry to discover why was this flu SO deadly. The first attempt was a failure because it was to early in medical history and technology. The second attempt had two paths going simultaneously to find the 1918 virus. One was started in the "present day" and the other was a follow up to the long ago decades attempt to recover the actual 1918 flu virus. Would either path win? If one path did win, which was it and what were the results of the win? Read the book for "The Rest of the Story."

By the way the first must read book about the 1918 flu isAlfred W....

United States on Dec 29, 2020

Simon Rotelli: ... ovviamente appena torneranno ad essere disponibili.

Ho iniziato a leggerlo con il pensiero di aver scelto una lettura scontata in questo momento, e mi sono trovato a leggerlo tutto d'un fiato!

Una ricostruzione storica con le informazioni scientifiche che via via accrescono per noi profani la conoscenza del funzionamento dei virus, il tutto con il ritmo e la suspence del giallo, davvero interessante e scritto molto bene.

È naturalmente anche una fonte inestimabile di informazioni sulla durata e sulle conseguenze della lotta al Coronavirus.

Italy on Apr 21, 2020

Amazon Customer: Quite a readable book - a sort of scientific whodunnit - except we are left hanging. The book ends describing ongoing research so why not hold off publishing for a year or so until more information comes to light? I agree with the other reviewer about some cattiness regarding Kirsty Duncan - - was there any need to mention her looks or effect on other men in her team? So we are presented with a book that describes the 1918 Flu epidemic on the USA but pretty much ignores anywhere else! In the end a frustrating book.

United Kingdom on Aug 22, 2011

Amazon Customer: The story of the 1918 flu epidemic is shocking and bald: more people died in one winter than had been killed in the entire First World War.
Not far from my house in South-East England is a churchyard in which there are 300-year-old graves. But about a third of the plot is given over to the graves of Canadian servicemen, all of whom died in their late teens in the Winter of 1918/1919. This was after the war had ended, and these boys died not at the hands of the enemy but from influenza.
This excellent book homes in on the detective race to secure samples of the 1918 flu and identify the genetic code of the virus that caused it. There are many other threads that the author could have followed, such as the appalling scale of human tragedy, the technical details of the virological study of the flu, and the shock value of our potential vulnerability to future outbreaks (and to diseases like SARS). But Gina Kolata focuses on the scientific race to isolate and identify the virus, and this makes for a page-turning thriller.
The book lacks structure, though, and becomes increasingly scrambled. In tracing the parallel careers and scientific studies of the protagonists, Kolata...

United Kingdom on May 19, 2003