The Black Death: A History From Beginning to End by Henry Freeman

The Black Death: A History From Beginning to End Reviews

• 
  Serge

  
  
  "Adieu, farewell earths blisse
  This world uncertaine is
  Fond are lifes lustful joys
  Death proves them all but toyes
  Non from his darts can flye
  I am sick, I must dye.
  Lord, have mercy on us."
  - Thomas Nash
  
  A brief overview of the many major facets of The Black Death that ravaged the world from 1348 to 1352. I believe it's very important to look back at these tragedies and learn from them in order to improve our lives today and not repeat these events that devastated millions of people. This is especially relevant today since at the time I'm writing this, the world is going through the Corona virus pandemic. Like the author mentioned, we humans have the remarkable capacity of survival and we document the events we go through, which serve as valuable information for the coming generations.
  
  I learned a lot of interesting facts about The Black Death thanks to this short book, such as it possibly being a combination of 3 types of diseases which spread across the world and the most probable ways the plague spread itself, through certain flees that inhabited rodents, as well as counter-arguments to those claims. The author also explores the cultural impact this plague had on society and what I find particularly interesting was the fact that it contributed to women being able to have access to literature and do their own writing, since the plague paved way for literature to become more accessible to the common folk, women included, and not be exclusive to individuals of the noble class.
  
  Lots of interesting facts to be learned in this book, expressed in an easy to read and digestible manner. Definitely recommend!
• 
  RM(Alwaysdaddygirl)

  Okay.
  
  3 stars:
  -No exact date of when this person died in Colorado.
  -One part that is questionable. I did not do the research to verify. I understand these series does not include references. This would have help.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Jessaka

  I was reading Bill Bryson's book, "Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe," and he was reading "The Black Death" by Philip Ziegler and commenting on it, so I thought maybe he had the better idea, so I got this free book on kindle and began reading it instead.
  
  I have heard about the black plague since my teenage years or was it in college? I remember once being mesmerized by a college professor's speech on the subject. Even he was mesmerized by it since his class wasn't "Black Plague 101." It could have been the English class where we had to read Camus' book. "The Plague." I remember his telling us that it could happen again. Well, it has in a small way, because last year there were 14 cases in the U.S. with 4 people dying, and every year we have a few cases of it. Not much to worry about.
  
  Bill Bryson talked about something I had never heard about: Back in the 1300s Italy had rain for over 6 months, flooding the land by turning it into swamps, killing crops, causing famine, disease, death and later earthquakes, and then right after that the black plague.
  
  Sounds like the end times, and yes, people thought just that. They believed that people were dying due to their sins, and that after they died God would send them to a burning hell. I didn't realize that God believed in double jeopardy, but they did. They even blamed the Jews for poisoning them because the Jews lived in ghettos and didn't contact it. They could just as easily have thought that the Jews were favored by God, but no, instead they began killing the Jews, actually wiping them out in large numbers. People are often as scary, if not more so, than the diseases that are contacted. They are just as scary today because when AIDS showed up it was because, again, God was punishing the sinners, who would then die and go to hell. And some gays and lesbians have been murdered just like the Jews during the plague. These murders went up 11 percent in 2014. But AIDS isn't the only modern disease that has been attributed to God's punishment. Ebola, for example, is another one.
  
  I was surprised to learn how many times in history the black plague has shown up, and that the first time it caused between 75 to 100 million deaths. This was painfully scary to the people dying back then, and the world came to a stop for those 4 years or so.
  
  I remember after my professor brought the subject up I would see rats in San Francisco and realize that one could get bitten by a flea carrying the disease and then pass it on. And actually back in the early 1900s S.F. did have the plague due to the rats--some that came over here on ships. They just love crawling up those mooring lines. Also, you don't want to know how many sewer rats they have in S.F. or in other cities, and now the drought and even constructions work is stirring them up in San Francisvo. Like my professor said, "We need more cats."
  
  Now if you want to know what this character below has to do with the black death, you have to read this book:
  
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• 
  Vicki

  This was a great opportunity to read about the Black Plague. There were things in the book that I never knew. In fact there was a lot of facts that were new to me.
  
  It is a good quick read. It covers the numbers of deaths all over Europe and into Asia. I did not know that there were recent outbreaks.
• 
  Gabriella David

  This was a great summary of The Black Death. I remember learning only one sentence in Biology that the bacterium that caused the bubonic plague was Yersinia pestis. It was great to learn more about it.
  There was one very interesting aspect which I'd like to share.
  

  The children’s nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie” (or “Ring, a Ring of Roses”) is, wildly, a possible product of the Black Death. The rhyme in full, as we all know is thus: Ring around the Rosie (Ring, a Ring of Roses) Pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes We all fall down. The first line refers to a ring of roses; this could be in reference to the rash that precipitated death from the plague. Sometimes it appeared on the body in a rose-like pattern. It could also be a reference to the rosary, which as the time of the Black Death would have been carried by every person as a constant reminder to repent of one’s sins in the hope of escaping the disease. The second line is also apt for the time. Because of the ubiquity of death, the smell of rotting corpses would have been pervasive. Flowers (or “posies”) would have been carried by a person as much as possible and often held directly to the nose to escape the odor. The theory that the disease was caused by bad air would also have played a part in this; by holding flowers to one’s nose, the bad air would be blocked thus effectively keeping the plague at bay. “Ashes, ashes” could very likely refer to the drizzle of ashes that could have been a constant part of urban life especially during the Black Death. If and when bodies were burned in an effort to rid the population of the disease, ash would have been everywhere. Corpse disposal in this way does not seem to have been common, as it was not traditional to burn bodies at the time, especially considering it was an act of desecration according to religious interpretation at the time. The final line, “we all fall down,” is fairly straightforward. Everyone was dying, or “falling” in the face of the Black Death. What seems like an innocuous nursery rhyme is actually potentially quite morbid.

  
  This was a very short book and quite interesting, 10/10 would recommend.
  
  
• 
  Udit Nair

  Since we are amidst a pandemic it becomes important to take a look through the past. The Black Death still remains one of the harshest calamity that struck humanity as a whole. The Black Death in particular remains one of history’s most lethal events, if not the deadliest. In the Black Death of 1348-1352 alone, the body count was more than both World Wars and all recorded genocides in history combined, including the Holocaust, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and all African genocides. And that’s just considering the low end of the hypothesized figures.
  
  This small account does a fair job to remind us of the past.
• 
  Rosemary Standeven

  This short book was very well written and informative. While there was not a lot of totally new information for me, there was often a different way of looking at the impact the plague had – on the economic situation and power structures of the times:
  

  “Because of the severe decrease in the working population, the bargaining power of serfs increased as landowners and noblemen became more dependent on fewer people. Wages rose, and this increase in economic power led to the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381.”

  
  art:
  

  “The Black Death became personified in many different ways throughout Europe. In the south, it was seen as a skeleton or a hooded figure, sometimes with or without a scythe. In the north, Death was an old woman, also hooded. The hood more than likely was a symbol for fear of the unknown; unable to see Death’s face, one was without knowledge of what was to come”

  
  religion, and the position of women in society:
  

  “From a literary perspective, the plague was actually quite fortuitous for women. Prior to the Black Death, literature and writing was compiled in Latin, and was restricted to men as dictated by the Church. Because of the advent of the acceptance of vernacular literature, women were suddenly given the opportunity to participate in the written word.”

  
  I was particularly interested in how the plague spread around the world, from country to country – and how quickly, given the antiquated forms of transport available.
  To some extent, the changes in attitudes and society that happened during the medieval centuries, can be seen occurring today with the COVID pandemic. The numbers of deaths from the plague (75 – 200 million) – in particular as percentages of population (sometimes up to 60%) – were mind numbing. In contrast, the number of registered COVID deaths world-wide is today 1.26 million, with around 65% of infected people surviving (numbers from John Hopkins), though the current pandemic still has not come under any control, and the numbers of deaths and infections may be under reported in many countries.
  The book ends with a quote, which shows how far we have come since the dark/middle ages and – in hindsight – how little we have learned:
  

  “Because of the desire to avoid that sort of pain and suffering, we now have modern medicine which helps us avoid global pandemics and mass casualties like those seen during the Black Death. And that is progress.”

  
  
• 
  Jane

  If you're looking for some serious history book about The Black Death, this is book isn't it. However, if you're looking for some cursory, yet really interesting, information with no real references to the sources, then this is it. I liked it for it gave some really interesting facts about The Black Death back in the 1300s - how it spread and how it was perceived, but I really, really would've loved to see some references at the end of the book because the way it is in its current state may just as well be something the author came up with all by himself.
• 
  A.L. Sowards

  Wasn't quite sure how to rate this, but I think I'll go with 3.5 stars. It's a small book, but it does a decent job of covering the plague of the mid 1300s. It's not long, but a longer book on this particular subject would just be depressing, so I guess I don't have complaints with the length (and I knew it was short when I downloaded it to my kindle). I learned a few new things, especially in regards to the plague's impact on society. Overall, the writing and organization were good. I wish he would have referred to Constantinople as Constantinople instead of Istanbul (it was still Constantinople back then). A good choice for someone who wants to spend an hour on the subject and get something better than what an internet search would provide.
• 
  Cheryl

  I love these little history books. I recommend them to anyone who wants a quick overview. They are very useful to get an idea of a subject and then you can always go on and learn more and buy a ‘proper’ book if you are still interested.
  
  This was interesting, a bit dark (but then that is what I would expect from a book about the Black Death). It was factual and filled with interesting insights and a few dates, but not overwhelming like a text book.
  
  I learned from this so that’s its job done I suppose. The book itself covers all aspects; an overview, what The Black Death is/was, how it spread, how it was treated, it’s impact upon the economy and the arts and its consequences throughout the globe.
  
  A fascinating if grim book, one I recommend you start with if you are interested in this subject.
  I don’t think I can quite give this top marks, it is too brief for that, but it is very good, so the next best 4*/5.
  
• 
  Lisa *OwlBeSatReading*

  The facts and figures of the black death was mind blowing. The sheer volume of humanity wiped out by this terrible disease was anything from 75 million to 200 million which is a vague figure, but records show they couldn't keep up with the body count!
  
  A quick, informative read, covering all aspects of the many different strains of the plague. Written concisely, with plenty of gruesome information to make this a truly revolting historical read.
  
  I shall read more by Henry Freeman on the many other subjects that catch my eye, just to learn about the basics without too much information overload.
  
  
• 
  Sheila Myers

  A nice little book covering the major points of the Black Death. It serves as a nice introduction to the various topics covered.
• 
  Jacques Coulardeau

  An interesting book because it brings together a lot of information that is generally scattered around and it updates that information at all levels, particularly the medical level.
  
  If the first chapters sound very technical and factual, the author reaches later on the cultural level and that is essential. The Black Death was a traumatic experience for the world and particularly for Europe, or it is rather better known for Europe.
  
  The trauma can be explained easily. Let’s say the European population went down 50% in about ten years. I lengthen the period slightly because it did not disappear as fast as it appeared. It took three years to reach the whole of Europe and then five to eight years to ease out (not completely but mostly). If you consider the lowering of the population to be 50% you have to add to this the births (one child per woman every 18 months or so) from which you could subtract the normal infantile death rate which was enormous, about 50% within the first six or eight years of a child’s life. That means that over ten years the death toll of the Black Death was a lot more important than 50% and probably closer to 75% of the potential population that should have been reached ten years after the arrival of this Black Death.
  
  The only records we have for the population are church records. Priests died just like anyone else. As soon as the priest was dead the various christening, marriage and burial registers could not be held any more. We would have to wait for a new priest to arrive in the parish.
  
  We have to take into account the fact that the epidemic spread in rural areas along different ways than those in urban areas. The Middles Ages were a time of a great improvement of agriculture, proto-industry, food and social conditions (the religious reform of the 10th century that brought 52 Sundays and about 25 days of no work at all: nearly 80 days of non-working time a year). The result was a tremendous demographic expansion that reached its limits in the last third of the 13th century and then overpopulation in rural areas caused some younger ones to just become vagrant people moving to cities or moving around in rural areas and becoming thieves of some kind. That’s long before the Black Death. But the Black Death will be spread in rural areas by these vagrants and of course by the numerous markets in cities that attracted the rural producers who went back to their rural areas after market day with the disease. We do not know when the markets were closed down, if ever; because the cities had to get food from the rural areas in a time when supermarkets did not exist.
  
  A last element has to be added. The monasteries are essential for religious and cultural reasons. The monks have duties towards the outside population and towards the “beggars” and “travelers.” The beggars and travelers were bringing in the disease, whereas the monks going out to take care of the living and the dead outside brought the disease back inside. That explains for example that the Abbey Church of La Chaise Dieu built by Clement VI, the Jew-friendly pope suoted by this book and who was a monk in this abbey before becoming the Pope, contains a Danse Macabre of great fame. We are here in a rural and mountainous area and that area was touched by the Black Death drastically. In rural areas it is not rare that a whole village be erased from the map; and when in any village the priest died (high risk since the priests were taking care of the dying at least at first and maybe longer prudence would justify) there was no religious connection and recording of anything, explaining why we cannot have figures. We may have the figures up to the death of the priest and then we have to wait for the arrival of a new priest – eventually – several years later to catch up haphazardly on the blank spot.
  
  Two ideas are slightly surprising. Vernacular languages did not start being used at the time or after the Black Death. Vernacular languages had been commonly used for at least three centuries by minstrels, Meistersänger, troubadours, trouveres and many others of this poets-singers profession who went around from one castle to the next, from one market place to the next, from one fair to the next to recite the poetry they had composed or they had learned by heart from other colleagues whose apprentices they were because there were no books, not even one bible in every church because there was no printing press. Literature, poetry was essentially oral and orally transmitted and distributed in the vernacular languages. One famous example is of course the Welsh triads and the story of Tristan and Iseult coming from these triads down into Cornwall and then into French Brittany to be recorded in the 12th century in French (and later to be translanted into Old Norse and German in the 13th century), the French of the time spoken among the Norman nobility and population that had taken over England in Hastings (1066). All that is long before the Black Death. What is original about Chaucer is that he wrote or composed his poetry in Middle English which was no longer the French of the older times but the new language of the elite, the court, the nobility and the socially superior classes. Note we must have three copies (all of them with serious variations) of the original Canterbury Tales and they were popular because Chaucer himself went around to recite them from memory of course. Very often these “readings” were accompanied by music on some kind of lute or harp, at times a pipe. See for that the sculptures known as the musician angels of the Abbey Church of La Chaise Dieu, once again of Clement VI.
  
  Another surprising element is the connection between the Black Death and the Renaissance. The Renaissance would not have been possible without a deep reflection on life and death;, on cultural matters that took place during and after the Black Death period that has to be seen as longer than four years. This evolution and the dire need of a whole new generation of educated people to replace the dead in all managerial and administrative positions made it urgent to enter some “mass education” for a new enlarged elite. This is the evolution that brings up one invention without which the Renaissance is not possible: the printing press (1450) which made universities possible with books, which brought the Reformation and it is this boiling pot of needs, wants and desires that brought the Quattro Cento (that includes late Gothic art and culture and the first phase of the Renaissance) and the Renaissance itself. But the Renaissance is still a feudal period economically and socially. The ownership of the land is still feudal and it will take several centuries to get that feudal system out, first England starting with Henry VIII, though very limited as for anti-feudal reforms, and then the Stuarts, Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution; then France in 1789 and Germany and Italy in the 19th century, not to speak of Russia. Voltaire still defended before the French Revolution that no subject of a modern king, like the French one for instance, the one he called “my king”, was supposed to refuse obeying the king’s orders and could not ask in any way for the king to be removed, let alone be beheaded (Charles I of England is not far from his own consciousness). That is pure political feudalism. Though it is true Leibnitz is slightly more advanced but check the English Bill of Rights and it states freedom of speech only for the members of parliament and within the normal locales for the various parliamentarian and electoral activities of MPs, the latter concerning at the very most 5% of the population. That is not exactly a non-feudal democracy, is it?
  
  But this short book could be very useful as an introduction to the historical reflection on the impact of a pandemic on human society.
  
  Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
  
• 
  Ruthanne Johnston

  Everything in this, still interesting book, could be found,in greater quantity on the internet. Other than that,it was a short and interesting story. And I have to add frightening to that because there is, currently, a case of bubonic plague right now in the United States.
  With what we’re going through with COVID-19, it’s chilling to know that the first recorded pandemic, wiped out half the population of the earth in the 15th century...and it still exists. The good news is that not a virus but a bacterial infection from fleas that existed on rats. Thank the good Lord for antibiotics!
• 
  Jena

  La Black Death o Mors Nigra a que se refiere este estudio es la mismísima que conocemos como Peste Bubónica. Esta se dio en varias épocas de la historia, pero la más mortífera fue la de 1348 a 1352.
  La primera oleada se dio en el año 542 en el Imperio Bizantino de Justiniano, y se cree que murieron por esta causa unos 25 millones de personas.
  Se dice que la peste se esparció de tierra firme asiática vía Europa, por medio de barcos que recorrían las rutas comerciales del Mediterráneo. Así llegaron a Italia y Grecia yendo al oeste y a Asia Menor por el este.
  La segunda oleada, se piensa que tuvo su origen en el Asia Central, específicamente en Mongolia y China del oeste. Los ratones infectados por las pulgas, eran originarios del Kurdistan y de la India del norte, que llegaron a Mongolia y causaron una epidemia mortal una década antes de su llegada a Europa. Por el Camino de la Seda llegó al puerto de Haffa en Crimea y de ahí a los barcos genoveses que habían instalado en ese puerto un centro de transferencia de mercancías. El primer sitio en donde se dio la peste fue en Pisa, Italia. En 1348 llegó a Francia, de ahí a España y Portugal. De este último paso a Inglaterra, y ésta la pasó a Alemania; en 1349 ya estaba en Noruega. Islandia y Rusia recibieron la peste en 1351. Por Sicilia pasó a Egipto, a la Meca, Mosul y Bagdad en 1349.
  La investigación moderna nos cuenta que la Peste Bubónica tenía 2 tipos de "Y. pestis": una que entró a Europa por Marsella, y la otra, llegó por los Países Bajos. Bocaccio describe en El Decamerón los síntomas: la peste produce una muerte horrible y grotesca. Un "gavocciolo" era un tumor purulento, también conocido como "buba", de ahí el término de Peste Bubónica. Una vez aparecidas las bubas, muchos sufrían fiebre aguda, vómitos de sangre y morían a los 7 días.
  Se cree (digo "se cree" porque en ese tiempo no existían registros creíbles y completos, los médicos que llevaban las cuentas también morían),que debido a esta pandemia se causaron más muertes que en todas las guerras, incluidas las mundiales del siglo XX. De una población de 450 millones de europeos, sobrevivieron sólo 350 millones.
• 
  Mars Smith

  The kindle edition has 45 pages. It took me about 20 minutes to completely read it. It consists of multiple explanations for why the Black Death started. It also talks about plague doctors and literature works that resulted from the plague. It briefly discusses persecution due to religious beliefs. Most importantly, the timeline goes through different outbreaks.
  
  Pro: The structure of the book starts with the Black Death, then the second pandemic, and ends with the third pandemic. This allows the reader to understand that there was more than one outbreak. Great book for those wanting to learn a little about the Black Death.
  
  Con: While this little book is comprehensive, some of the events mentioned are very brief. So, if you are looking for a book that is more in-depth when it comes to different pandemics then this book is not for you.
• 
  Manjri Gopalan

  The book is so well written that one could actually feel the pain of those impacted by the plague. At some places, I felt the narration was so realistic that I was feeling afraid that I would get bubonic plague myself. Phew!!! Also, it was interesting to read the atrocities of few superstitious on the Jew community.
• 
  Zaeem

  It's more like an informative magazine. Took me 90 minutes to read.
• 
  Hannah Mc

  Considering the times I thought it was ironic to reading a book on the most well known and wide spread pandemic known to us today.
  
  Killing millions of people, it wiped out much of the worlds population, with no access to sanitation or knowledge of hygiene, the plague spread like wildfire killing most in its path.
  
  The bacteria that causes the Black Death is actually fairy complex, causes a mutation in the gut of the flea it infects. From there the flea regurgitates the bacteria back into the bite wound from its own feeding therefore infecting the host.
  
  Something that would have terrified the people who suffered with this disease is the swiftness in which it killed, usually within days. Even today there is a death rate of 75% of the bubonic plague, which is really very scary when you think about it as there are still outbreaks in some parts of Africa.
  
  The infamous plague doctor mask is still popular today and seen throughout modern life in books, tv shows, films... they were a necessity even though their medical knowledge was very limited or non existent, they performed important roles as such research and keeping records of the dead.
  
  Many believed it was sent by god to repent for their sins, it was such a wide spread and contagious disease it laid waste to many countries before it finally died out.
  
  I love these kinds of books, short but informative and very interesting. I can’t imagine how scary life must have been to be able during the Black Death, without the knowledge we have today to protect ourselves, it must have felt like lambs being left to the slaughter waiting to fall sick.
• 
  Sarah Crowe

  For what this book is, it gets 4 stars (more like 3.5 or so, but that's not possible on this site). If you do not know much about the topic and just want an overview with adequate breadth and just a dash of depth, then this book is perfect. It is well-written for quick comprehension, but goes beyond just a descriptive account and delves briefly into the potential historical, social, geographical, political, etc. factors that may have led the areas most affected to be so for so long. The context given is just enough to give some meaning beyond just that a lot of people died from a disease at this time. In fact, I didn't realize that the Black Death was not just one plague, but a series of them with more than one cause going on behind the scenes through time (which makes the sheer numbers of deaths and the large area suffering from the affliction more than if it had been as simple as I had heard it mentioned before in passing). It also showed how the third pandemic (recurrence of it) culminated with a need to mourn, but then gave way to the Renaissance.
  
  Quick read, seriously if you don't take a break, you can read it in the same amount of time (probably less) than some boring show on Netflix you're about to watch anyway. Read this instead!
• 
  Melvin Marsh, M.S.

  Nice overview of the plague
  
  Honestly I felt it was a bit short but I feel what was covered was covered decently. I would have loved to read more as this is a favorite subject of mine.
• 
  Donna

  Quick overview
  
  This was a quick overview of the Black Death throughout history. Some interesting facts were included such as how people reacted and daily life at the time. The Kindle edition did not include the referenced artwork however.
• 
  Anita

  3.5
• 
  Suzette

  Very interesting
  
  During this pandemic, I thought it would be interesting to read about the Black Plague. It was interesting seeing the Black Plague from so many aspects of society.
• 
  Pete

  The Black Death (2017) by Henry Freeman is another very short history book on an interesting subject. Freeman looks at the Bubonic Plague and the way it swept across the world killing millions.
  
  The Plague's impact, particularly in the middle ages was incredible, with death rates of up to 75% in some areas. Across Europe perhaps half the population died, a truly amazing figure. In The Middle East as was millions died with a huge percentage of the population also dying.
  
  The book is very short and is quite interesting. It doesn't have any great insights but perhaps offers something more than a wikipedia page.