The Black Death and the Transformation of the West
By: David Herlihy ; edited and with an introduction by Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Contributors: Cohn, Samuel Kline.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass, USA
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 117
Subjects: Black Death -- Europe.; Diseases and history.; Civilization, Medieval.; Renaissance.
First sentence: The Black Death of 1348–1349, and the recurrent epidemics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were the most devastating natural disasters ever to strike Europe.
Description: The Black Death was the great watershed in medieval history. In this compact book, David Herlihy makes bold yet subtle and subversive inquiries that challenge historical thinking about this disastrous period. As in a finely tuned detective story, he upturns intriguing bits of epidemiological evidence.

And, looking beyond the view of the Black Death as unmitigated catastrophe, Herlihy sees in it the birth of technological advance as societies struggled to create labor-saving devices in the wake of population losses. New evidence for the plague's role in the establishment of universities, the spread of Christianity, the dissemination of vernacular cultures, and even the rise of nationalism demonstrates that this cataclysmic event marked a true turning point in history.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Alk. paper.
Table of contents: title: Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: 1
title: Bubonic Plague: Historical Epidemiology and the Medical Problems
pagenum: 17; label: 2
title: The New Economic and Demographic System
pagenum: 39; label: 3
title: Modes of Thought and Feeling
pagenum: 59; title: Notes
pagenum: 83; title: Index
pagenum: 111