* History * essays redefine the historical study of the Black Death.Herlihy's contention is that we can learn from this 'devastating natural disaster' for example, parallels can be drawn to today's pandemic of AIDS, especially in the resultant bigotries that both engendered.This book, which opens a new chapter on the history and implications of the plague, is essential for all readers of medieval history. Lara Marks * History Today * The essays offer a number of fresh perspectives on the Black Death, the series of plagues that ravaged Europe after 1347. Andrew Wear * Times Literary Supplement * Focusing on the Black Death which reduced the population in some European cities by 80 percent, Herlihy draws some powerful parallels between the plague and AIDS.His argument is a provocative one which will lead other historians to re-examine not only the period of the Black Death but the foundations of medieval and modern medicine. The Black Death was to shake Europe out of its immobile lethargy and to initiate processes of renewal.Samuel Cohn's succinct introduction provides an excellent commentary on Herlihy's theses. Briefly and lucidly, Herlihy argued that Europe was.locked into Malthusian stasis, with a population unable to improve its standard of living and possessed of a set of unchanging and stagnating institutions. Herlihy proposed that the Black Death led to "the transformation of the West" and shaped crucial aspects of modern thinking and behavior.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |