For most young people, SARS-Cov-2 is our first brush with a life-altering global pandemic. With newsrooms abusing words like unprecedented and record-breaking, it is easy to forget that Covid-19 is far from the first illness to shake humanity.
In fact, disease and contagion have remained one of the biggest themes in literature since the birth of the medium. And there’s never been a better time to read these pandemic books to gain some perspective on what’s happening around you.
1. Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease by Mark Harrison
Mark Harrison’s Contagion is a fascinating study of how deeply trade and contagion have been impacted by each other for centuries. The book shows how governance often causes more problems, while scrambling to save people and economies, than it solves.
2. Epidemics and Society: from the Black Death to the present by Frank M. Snowden
The number one book recommended by the World Economic Forum for context on the coronavirus outbreak, Frank Snowden’s Epidemics and Society is a gripping journey of how infectious outbreaks have shaped not just healthcare but also the arts, religion, intellectual history and warfare.
3. Age Of Pandemics (1817-1920) by Chinmay Tumbe
Chinmay Tumbe’s Age of Pandemics chronicles three of the worst pandemics to hit the Indian subcontinent between 1817 and 1920. The book offers a jarring look at how much has changed in the last 100 years but how so many of the same problems still plague the nation even today.
4. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata
Gina Kolata’s Flu tells the story of the disease that infamously took nearly 40 million lives almost overnight. Fast, big and highly dangerous, Kolata takes readers on the flu journey with deep insight while maintaining a sense of adventure.
5. An epidemic of rumors: how stories shape our perception of disease by Jon D. Lee
In an age crippled with fake news and misinformation, Jon Lee’s Epidemic of Rumours studies the human response and conversation in reference to epidemics. The book looks at how the stories, jokes, conspiracy theories, legends, and rumours associated with an outbreak can be more harmful than the disease itself.