A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class and Captivity Shape Us, from Cholera to Covid-19

A History of the World in Six Plagues unveils a powerful and unsettling truth: epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. 'If everyone read Edna Bonhomme's incredible, humane, insightful book - and I hope they do - we might stand a chance' Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense WorldIn this groundbreaking work, Bonhomme explores how six pivotal diseases - Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola and COVID-19 - have shaped the trajectory of human history.Through vivid storytelling and rigorous research, she reveals how pandemics have consistently widened the gaps in racial, economic and sociopolitical divides, from the slave ships of the Atlantic to today's fractured healthcare systems. How did a colonial obsession with sugar amplify the devastation of Cholera?Why did sleeping sickness become a weapon of empire in Tanzania? And how has COVID-19 magnified inequities in our modern, interconnected world?Bonho