Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World Hardcover – 1 Jun. 2017

A virus spreading around the world, aided by international travel. Difficulties getting people to follow social distancing. Debates and disagreement over the health impact of wearing facemasks. Controversies over whether or not schools should be closed. Inadequate public health information for ethnic minority communities. The origins of Donald Trump's wealth.No, this isn't a review of a book about 2020, it's a review of a book on the misnamed Spanish flu of the early twentieth century. Long treated as a historical quirk - that mostly forgotten thing which killed more people than the First World War - the global pandemic has become rather more newsworthy since we've faced a similar challenge a century on.Many of the parallels between then and now are striking, though the one big difference - the huge advances in medical science and in public health expertise - make the outcome mercifully different.Laura Spinney's Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World is a great and highly accessible guide to one of the twentieth century's greatest tragedies.It is not a detailed academic study. Statistics, for example, are frequently only mentioned in passing, with little detailed analysis presented to back them up or put them in context. The endnotes are fairly briefly for the amount of information presented in the book and there is no bibliography. That said, the book has a good reputation and it looks as if the evidence presented is robust; it's just presented in a popular style which means you often have to take that on trust. Rather than taking the form of an academic study, the book takes the form of a (very) long read piece of journalism, which makes sense as the author is a science journalist.The sheer volume of information - and the size of the numbers involved - make the book a little overwhelming at times. It's easy to end up grazing through several pages without quite taking in what they really mean. But that's as much on the reader as the author.Pale Rider ranges widely over history, with many digressions into earlier outbreaks and medical history. There are even a couple of paragraphs on how animals use social distancing from their brethren to protect against diseasesRead it and you'll also find out why 'the Spanish flu' got that inaccurate name.

A global phenomenon is the world-world pandemic that has loosely become known as Spanish Flu 1918.That is was written prior to the COVID-19 crisis which the WHO termed a modern day pandemic and which we are still living through. Makes this a more interesting and telling account.This is a well researched and detailed study; well indexed and with noted references throughout.I found the book well paced and covered an enormous range of issues and covered many countries and how they saw it and how it was to many a slight infection of flu. Others especially of a certain age group, being pregnant or of poorer living standards, diet, housing and access to medicine fared much worse and modern estimates calculate a total mortality across the nations of between 50 - 100 million.It tackles some of the issues I had.My general ignorance of the subject compared to my knowledge of the Great War 1914-1918. It’s potential origins are discussed and why some were more susceptible than others and how social distancing was introduced in places. Why others responded differently. I liked the explanation of the growing medical knowledge and why this didn’t always bring relief or a concerted approach.Furthermore I found fascinating the potential effects this illness had on many countries with regards to political advancement or stalled reform as influential people succumbed to the epidemic.The whole aspect of the after effects of the illness, lost generations beyond the slaughter in War. The like of artistic record in any format is tackled as is that although lessons were taken on broad, an interesting line of thought is given to the need for time and more detailed knowledge in all the diverse settings to fully understand the impact this event had in terms of total deaths, social change and its effect on history.Some have even argued that the timing of the epidemic perhaps hindered the peace settlement and even contributed to the 2nd World War.I really appreciated this many faceted approach and global perspective. It has added greatly to my understanding and joined up a few dots along the way.I found the evolution of medical reasoning alongside the development of disease as human beings first settled into communities and learned animal husbandry quite revealing. It shows why we were expecting the next expansive flu virus to hit us. Yet despite the preparedness, understanding of animal to human transmission.It leaves me disappointed in the lack of current medical and scientific advancement to leave the door open to a coronavirus and fail to share information across the globe. Quarantine in the modern world is way beyond keeping a ship from disembarking in port and for all our intelligence we perhaps lack a sense of humanity and are devoid of common sense.