[New Book] Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death

Available in Open Access

Editor: Monica H. Green (Arizona State University)

Publisher: Arc Humanities Press, 2021

This ground-breaking book brings together scholars from the humanities and social and physical sciences to address the question of how recent work in the genetics, zoology, and epidemiology of plague’s causative organism (Yersinia pestis) can allow a rethinking of the Black Death pandemic and its larger historical significance.

Contents

Introducing The Medieval Globe – Carol Symes

Editor’s Introduction to Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World – Monica H. Green

Taking “Pandemic” Seriously: Making the Black Death Global – Monica H. Green

The Black Death and Its Consequences for the Jewish Community in Tàrrega: Lessons from History and Archeology – Anna Colet, Josep Xavier Muntané i Santiveri, Jordi Ruíz Ventura, Oriol Saula, M. Eulàlia Subirà de Galdàcano, and Clara Jauregui

The Anthropology of Plague: Insights from Bioarcheological Analyses of Epidemic Cemeteries – Sharon N. DeWitte

Plague Depopulation and Irrigation Decay in Medieval Egypt – Stuart Borsch

Plague Persistence in Western Europe: A Hypothesis – Ann G. Carmichael
 
New Science and Old Sources: Why the Ottoman Experience of Plague Matters – Nükhet Varlik

Heterogeneous Immunological Landscapes and Medieval Plague: An Invitation to a New Dialogue between Historians and Immunologists – Fabian Crespo and Matthew B. Lawrenz

The Black Death and the Future of the Plague – Michelle Ziegler

Epilogue: A Hypothesis on the East Asian Beginnings of the Yersinia pestis Polytomy – Robert Hymes
 
Diagnosis of a “Plague” Image: A Digital Cautionary Tale – Monica H. Green, Kathleen Walker-Meikle, and Wolfgang P. Müller