Return of the Black Death: The World's Greatest Serial Killer

I discovered this book by accident in a bookstore in a German airport. Once I started reading, I could not put it down. As a former history major, I found it informative and fascinating. I thought the authors meticulously and carefully proved their thesis, and kept me interested and reading the whole way. I find it intriguing that the scientific and medical communities have not embraced the idea that the devastating and world-altering event that we think of as the Black Death was actually NOT caused by the Bubonic Plague, but by something much worse, not identified in our modern times. If you are interested in history, I highly recommend this book. I have lost my copy, and plan on buying another. Similar books that I also loved are two by Richard Preston: The Hot Zone (about the ebola virus), and Demon in the Freezer (about the eradication of smallpox).

Scott and Duncan have quite obviously done their homework! I can't imagine the time ( & tedium) it must have taken to sift through all those records, but it was well worth the effort. I believe Scott and Duncan have seriously found the genuine cause of the Black Death. The way they present their information makes it seem as though it were staring us in the face all along. It's hard to believe so many scientists have clung to false assumptions in the face of what seems to be overwhelming evidence (just consider Iceland alone!). I simply won't be able to equate the Black Death with the Bubonic/Pneumonic ever again.

This is a really good book for information on the black plague but it is also very intersting.

The core of this book is the authors' convincing demonstration that the Black Death, which killed perhaps half the population of Europe during the Middle Ages, was not bubonic plaque, as has long been thought and taught, but a different, unknown, and far more dangerous virus. This is a difference that makes a difference. Modern medicine understands, can quickly detect, and can effectively treat outbreaks of bubonic plaque, making a major re-emergence very unlikely. But if the mysterious virus behind the Black Death, or a close cousin, were to re-emerge, the results could be catastrophic, as the authors clearly show. The authors reached this conclusion through patient sleuthing through ancient death records in towns and villages devastated by the Black Death. By tracing the exact lines of transmission, they were able to show that the virus had a long incubation period, during most of which people acted as unknowing carriers of the disease. By the time they developed its horrifying symptoms, it was too late for them and for those people they had crossed paths with. Perhaps because the authors' historical research was so important in guiding them to their radical new conclusion, they devote the first half of the book to it. Readers who make it through this sometimes repetitious recitation will find the second half of the book much more rewarding and thought-provoking Robert Adler, author of Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome; and Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation