At the height of WWI, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.

Monumental... powerfully intelligent... not just a masterful narrative... but also an authoritative and disturbing morality tale. (Chicago Tribune) Easily our fullest, richest, most panoramic history of the subject. (The New York Times Book Review)

John M. Barry is the author of four previous books, including the highly acclaimed and award- winning Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It ChangedAmerica.

Imprint: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Distributor: Penguin Group USA, Inc
Publication Date: 10-04-2005
Pages: 560
Measurements: 8.44in X 5.58in X 1.23in X 1.18lb