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1
Eothen (1948)
Alexander William Kinglake and Henry Romilly Fedden | 4.50
This 1948 edition of this popular work, first published in 1844 presents an entertaining account of the author's Eastern travels. Ostensibly with a view to providing a suggested outline of a tour to the interested reader, the book's portrayal of the internal journey one takes when travelling is as important an aspect of the book's value as is the historical interest it provides. more This 1948 edition of this popular work, first published in 1844 presents an entertaining account of the author's Eastern travels. Ostensibly with a view to providing a suggested outline of a tour to the interested reader, the book's portrayal of the internal journey one takes when travelling is as important an aspect of the book's value as is the historical interest it provides. less 
Alex Chase-LevensonKinglake is a witty writer, and though it may be a retrospective fiction that he was so blasé about the plague, I do think his ability to joke about it is a little comforting now. (Source)
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2
Cholera was the classic epidemic disease of the nineteenth century, as the plague had been for the fourteenth. Its defeat was a reflection not only of progress in medical knowledge but of enduring changes in American social thought. Rosenberg has focused his study on New York City, the most highly developed center of this new society. Carefully documented, full of descriptive detail, yet written with an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years, this narrative is as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian. In a new Afterword, Rosenberg discusses changes in... more Cholera was the classic epidemic disease of the nineteenth century, as the plague had been for the fourteenth. Its defeat was a reflection not only of progress in medical knowledge but of enduring changes in American social thought. Rosenberg has focused his study on New York City, the most highly developed center of this new society. Carefully documented, full of descriptive detail, yet written with an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years, this narrative is as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian. In a new Afterword, Rosenberg discusses changes in historical method and concerns since the original publication of The Cholera Years.
"A major work of interpretation of medical and social thought . . . this volume is also to be commended for its skillful, absorbing presentation of the background and the effects of this dread disease."—I.B. Cohen, New York Times
"The Cholera Years is a masterful analysis of the moral and social interest attached to epidemic disease, providing generally applicable insights into how the connections between social change, changes in knowledge and changes in technical practice may be conceived."—Steven Shapin, Times Literary Supplement
"In a way that is all too rarely done, Rosenberg has skillfully interwoven medical, social, and intellectual history to show how medicine and society interacted and changed during the 19th century. The history of medicine here takes its rightful place in the tapestry of human history."—John B. Blake, Science less Alex Chase-LevensonIt fixates on one city—New York—through three different cholera epidemics. So you can see change over time. You can see cholera going from being seen as a divine punishment, a dread disease against which people had no defence, to something that, by the 1860s, seemed to be a signifier of inadequate public health infrastructure. He shows how it moves from a religious framing to a scientific or... (Source)
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3
Mary Shelley, Morton D. Paley | 3.33
A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters. more A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters. less Alex Chase-LevensonOne of the things that I actually find paradoxically comforting about The Last Man is that it’s so much worse than even the worst predictions about coronavirus. But while The Last Man is a work of fiction, it does capture some central ideas about epidemics that were ubiquitous in the early nineteenth century. (Source)
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4
Between the years 1918 and1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in our nation's past.
American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that... more Between the years 1918 and1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in our nation's past.
American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that endured. Focused on the primary players in this drama--patients and their families, friends, and community, public health experts, and health care professionals--historian Nancy K. Bristow draws on multiple perspectives to highlight the complex interplay between social identity, cultural norms, memory, and the epidemic. Bristow has combed a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, novels, newspapers, magazines, photographs, government documents, and health care literature. She shows that though the pandemic caused massive disruption in the most basic patterns of American life, influenza did not create long-term social or cultural change, serving instead to reinforce the status quo and the differences and disparities that defined American life.
As the crisis waned, the pandemic slipped from the nation's public memory. The helplessness and despair Americans had suffered during the pandemic, Bristow notes, was a story poorly suited to a nation focused on optimism and progress. For countless survivors, though, the trauma never ended, shadowing the remainder of their lives with memories of loss. This book lets us hear these long-silent voices, reclaiming an important chapter in the American past.
less Alex Chase-LevensonBristow considers the pandemic from a variety of angles, thinking about how life changed in ways that varied based on class, gender, profession, race, and locality, thinking about what kinds of events were cancelled, what sorts of disagreements doctors had, and how doctors and nurses diverged in their reactions, how cities grappled with various practical problems….What also makes Bristow’s work... (Source)
Christian W. McMillenA fascinating book about a pandemic that, about a hundred years ago, was estimated to have caused perhaps as many 100 million deaths worldwide, with almost 700,000 deaths in the U.S………The most interesting part of Bristow’s book is that she so clearly shows the ways in which both the medical profession and municipal officials had no idea what they were dealing with. Something like this hadn’t... (Source)
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5
Samuel Pepys, Robert Latham | 4.18
The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events -- the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague and the Fire of London -- Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvelous portrait of seventeenth-century life.
Previously... more The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events -- the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague and the Fire of London -- Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvelous portrait of seventeenth-century life.
Previously published as The Shorter Pepys, this edition is edited and abridged by Robert Latham, Fellow and Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge. less 
Peter AckroydIt is an invaluable picture of daily life in mid-17th century London and one that has never really been rivalled by any other diarist. (Source)
Alex CarlilePepys gives you a total flavour of his time. It’s a wonderful picture of London – no one else has written remotely as well about London in those days. (Source)
Alex Chase-LevensonPepys is a really great person to follow through an epidemic. He records day by day what it’s like to live in a plague-stricken city, and shows us the intertwining of things that are normal and things that are surreal. (Source)
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