num_pages: 266
description: The Black Death and smallpox are behind us, the age of antibiotics and organ transplants is here. Yet a tide of new epidemics is rising around the world; AIDS, Lyme disease and 'mad cow' disease are just a few of dozens that have appeared in recent decades. Where do these new diseases come from, and why now?In this startling, lucid book, biohistorian Arno Karlen explains this plague of plagues. He shows that waves of new diseases have happened before, at crucial times in human history, when people dramatically changed their lives and environment. Today, by radically altering our landscape, technology and lifestyles, we again invite new epidemics. Travel and trade are making the world a global village for microbes, and even new medical technology is creating new infections. There is cause for alarm, but not despair. Our ancestors survived such crises, and now so must we. As this book shows, the first step is understanding how, from prehistory until today, men and microbes have been in an intimate dance of mutual adaptation.
language: English
title: Plague's Progress: A Social History of Man and Disease
publisher: Orion