written by William H. McNeill
Though first published in 1976 I read this probably ten years later. That was largely as part of my reading up on the whole idea of plagues in human history, in response to the general panic over the AIDS crisis in the mid 80's. I wanted to better understand what makes a plague a plague and how something like that could happen. It also has contemporary relevance in demonstrating the widespread effects of catastrophic disease spread in deforming and reforming societies, cultures and civilisations. It's way too early yet to say what lasting effect Covid 19 will have upon the UK, but it could well be quite significant.
Plagues & Peoples is provocative history, because it takes wide swipes at undermining the significance of wars and great individuals in human history. His essential premise is that plagues and diseases in general have had a far greater impact upon changing and directing humanities progress than those more lauded ( frequently male and white ) individuals and empires.
The world in the past was full of discreet disease pools, unique to a localised area, environment or culture. As humankind wandered the world, further afield they inevitably would cross, without knowing, a point that was a disease threshold. Once they did that they became exposed to a range of infections not previously encountered and without the anti-bodies to protect themselves, would die, at least initially, in huge numbers, sometimes decimating a whole civilisation. Though their widespread prevalence may have declined, these discreet disease pools still exist, we still never quite know where they are, until they make themselves known. Our responses are then always belated, the question these days is how much they are belated.
A classic incidence is when the indigenous Aztec civilisation met the Spanish Conquistadors. The Spanish who compiled the history of their conquest of the Americas, presented it as the justified victory of superior Catholic civilisation over a heathen one. However, their success could not have been so easily achieved, if at all, had not an epidemic of diseases the Spanish brought with them taken out the existing Aztec leadership and seriously weakened the ability of the citizens from a highly developed culture to put up an effective resistance.
Another, is the Ottoman Empire's advance on the Hapsburg Empire and why it stalled at the Siege of Vienna in 1683. This was due to the Ottoman military supply lines across the Balkans collapsing under the weight of infections running rife through its troops. Without these it could neither sustain a longer siege nor advance further afterwards, so it was forced to retreat. So all the historical bluster from Europe of a Holy War and the triumph of 'superior' Christianity over Islam etc etc, is very far from being the whole truth. Europe was saved from Ottoman invasion largely by a virulent disease threshold being crossed.
Mc Neill gives other detailed examples from many periods of history and different cultures, like China, India and Japan. So this is far from a western centric history book. The further back in history he goes the more conjectural he has to become, but some of his suggestions for what might have occured are thought provoking. One of these is the origins of the Indian caste system. This may have arisen from tribes in India crossing disease thresholds within the Indian sub-continent itself, or the arrival of new cultures into them such as the influx of Aryan migrants. The immigrant or indigenous people become the 'diseased other' over time transformed into a hierarchy of clean and unclean individuals. Given how vehemently some people blamed gay people for being the cause of AIDS or jumped on racial explanations for the current Covid 19 pandemic, this human tendency, though an old one, is unfortunately still alive and kicking.
This book significantly altered my perspective on history as it is traditionally presented to us. One small change in human behaviour can enable a new opportunistic disease to find itself a fresh infection host. With the increased intensity of global trade from the 16th century onwards, the rate at which such diseases reach pandemic levels has likewise also speeded up.
It would be so much simpler if diseases were caused by technology, such as a 5G Mast, because then we would just dismantle that cause, and the disease should then be extinguished. But the demographic spread and signifiers would be vastly different to that of an airborne or contact spread. So 99.9 times out of 100, a disease arising will be because of a small change in human behaviour that crosses a previously hidden disease threshold. We then become exposed to something we weren't previously aware existed or were prepared for.
