Doom
The Politics of Catastrophe
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Narrated by:
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Niall Ferguson
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By:
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Niall Ferguson
About this listen
"All disasters are in some sense man-made."
Setting the annus horribilis of 2020 in historical perspective, Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters.
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises. and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all.
Yet in 2020 the responses of many developed countries, including the United States, to a new virus from China were badly bungled. Why? Why did only a few Asian countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? While populist leaders certainly performed poorly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.
In books going back nearly 20 years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Ferguson has studied the foibles of modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online fragmentation.
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics, cliodynamics, and network science, Doom offers not just a history but a general theory of disasters, showing why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are getting worse at handling them.
Doom is the lesson of history that this country - indeed the West as a whole - urgently needs to learn, if we want to handle the next crisis better, and to avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline.
This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF of images and tables from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Niall Ferguson (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[Doom] hopscotches breezily across continents and centuries while also displaying an impressive command of the latest research in a large number of specialized fields, among them medical history, epidemiology, probability theory, cliodynamics and network theory.... Belongs on the shelf next to recent ambitious and eclectic books by authors like Jared Diamond, Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Steven Pinker.... Promises to make a contribution to improving our management of future disasters.... Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant.” (New York Times Book Review)
“Doom seeks to understand why humanity, time and again through the ages, has failed to prepare for catastrophes, whether natural or manmade.... Forecasting, network science, economics, epidemiology, together with the psychology of leadership are all considered in a dazzlingly broad examination of the ‘politics of catastrophe’.... Magisterial...[an] immensely readable book.” (The Financial Times)
“Doom covers an impressive sweep of history at a lively narrative clip and weaves a lot of disparate strands together into an engaging picture.” (The Guardian)
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- The Worldwide Uprising Against Globalization
- By: Nadav Eyal
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Revolt is an eloquent and provocative challenge to the prevailing wisdom about the rise of nationalism and populism. With a vibrant and informed voice, Nadav Eyal illustrates how modern globalization is not sustainable. He contends that the collapse of the current world order is not so much about the imbalance between technological achievement and social progress or the breakdown of liberal democracy as it is about a passion to upend and destroy power structures that have become hollow, corrupt, or simply unresponsive to urgent needs.
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Good observations, very politically biased.
- By P. Bradley on 11-29-23
By: Nadav Eyal
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The Nutmeg's Curse
- Parables for a Planet in Crisis
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis.
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performance....
- By Bonnie on 11-15-22
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Panic Attack
- Playing Politics with Science in the Fight Against COVID-19
- By: Nicole Saphier
- Narrated by: Nicole Saphier
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Medical doctor and national bestselling author of Make America Healthy Again Nicole Saphier reveals how politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has baffled the public by creating distrust, fueling conspiracy theories, and making it harder for Americans to understand the necessary path forward. The pandemic has resulted in a failure of government, much of which is unavoidable in a unique disaster scenario. However, the rampant politicization of science has hopelessly muddied the water and knee-jerk anti-Trumpism made it all worse.
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Very disappointed
- By K. Green on 07-29-21
By: Nicole Saphier
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The Ages of Globalization
- Geography, Technology, and Institutions
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.
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Narrator.
- By ROGER QUESADA on 08-03-20
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
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The Fate of Rome
- Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire
- By: Kyle Harper
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes listeners from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted.
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Interesting and worthwhile
- By B. Coleman on 06-15-19
By: Kyle Harper
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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Disunited Nations
- The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan, Roy Worley
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In Disunited Nations, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan presents a series of counterintuitive arguments about the future of a world where trade agreements are coming apart and international institutions are losing their power. Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China, not North Korea. We are already seeing, as Zeihan predicts, a shift in outlook on the Middle East: it is no longer Iran that is the region’s most dangerous threat, but Saudi Arabia.
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brilliant geopolitical primer re the future
- By Howard on 04-11-20
By: Peter Zeihan
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Until Proven Safe
- The History and Future of Quarantine
- By: Nicola Twilley, Geoff Manaugh
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Quarantine is our most powerful response to uncertainty: it means waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It is also one of our most dangerous, operating through an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space - from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in London, and from the hallways of the CDC.
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Excellent writing, timely and informative
- By MSE on 07-24-21
By: Nicola Twilley, and others
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The Human Tide
- How Population Shaped the Modern World
- By: Paul Morland
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The rise and fall of the British Empire; the emergence of America as a superpower; the ebb and flow of global challenges from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia. These are the headlines of history, but they cannot be properly grasped without understanding the role that population has played. The Human Tide shows how periods of rapid population transition - a phenomenon that first emerged in the British Isles but gradually spread across the globe - shaped the course of world history.
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dry
- By Ralph C. on 05-02-19
By: Paul Morland
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Warnings
- Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
- By: Richard A. Clarke, R.P. Eddy
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?
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On prediction, catastrophe and mitigation
- By S. Yates on 02-28-18
By: Richard A. Clarke, and others
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Progress
- Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
- By: Johan Norberg
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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It's on the television, in the papers, and in our minds. Every day we're bludgeoned by news of how bad everything is - financial collapse, unemployment, growing poverty, environmental disasters, disease, hunger, war. But the rarely acknowledged reality is that our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. By almost any index you care to identify, things are markedly better now than they have ever been for almost everyone alive.
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Global Uptrends That May Surprise You
- By Alexandra Hopkins on 09-22-17
By: Johan Norberg
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The World
- A Brief Introduction
- By: Richard Haass
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The World is designed to provide listeners of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Listeners will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments. While it is impossible to predict what the next crisis will be or where it will originate, those who listen to The World will have what they need to understand its basics and the principal choices for how to respond.
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Excellent Primer for young adults
- By Howells on 05-24-20
By: Richard Haass
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Superb as always!
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
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Civilization
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Thoughtful analysis of the ascendancy of the West.
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Empire
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The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's age of empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and the institutions of representative government - all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the 17th century until the mid-20th. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.
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Not Balanced till Conclusion
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The Pity of War
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The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.
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Ferguson wouldn’t know history if it hit him in the head
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The Ascent of Money
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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
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Superb as always!
- By Ivanhoe on 08-28-17
By: Niall Ferguson
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The Square and the Tower
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Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It's about states, armies, and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
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Thoughtful analysis of the ascendancy of the West.
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Empire
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The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's age of empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and the institutions of representative government - all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the 17th century until the mid-20th. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.
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Not Balanced till Conclusion
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The Pity of War
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The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.
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Ferguson wouldn’t know history if it hit him in the head
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A mostly successful and interesting history
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Kissinger: Volume I
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No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
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Riveting
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The House of Rothschild, Volume 1
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In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe.
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Great research, poor narrative
- By Amaze on 04-30-19
By: Niall Ferguson
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High Financier
- The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
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Overall
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Story
In this groundbreaking new biography, based on more than 10,000 hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, best-selling author Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of Siegmund Warburg, an extraordinary man whose austere philosophy of finance offers much insight today.
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A gem, if you are interested in these topics
- By Philo on 09-22-14
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Kissinger
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- Length: 33 hrs and 13 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Kissinger: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson, read by Roy McMillan. No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the 'indispensable man' whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded 'realist'.
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Excellent narrative & narrator
- By William Tutt on 10-10-17
By: Niall Ferguson
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Lords of Finance
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Performance
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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The Loom of Time
- Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
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Performance
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The Greater Middle East—the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia—existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability. Robert D. Kaplan explores Greater Middle East through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.
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detailed primer on the greater 'Middle East'
- By Stevon on 02-01-24
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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Democracy at Work
- A Cure for Capitalism
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Overall
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Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve.
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Fantastic
- By Brandon on 03-07-19
By: Richard D. Wolff
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The Rothschilds
- A Family Portrait
- By: Frederic Morton
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
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Performance
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Story
No family in the past two centuries has been as constantly at the center of Europe's great events, has featured such varied and spectacular personalities, has had anything close to the wealth of the Rothschilds. To this day they remain one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the world. In Frederic Morton's classic tale, the family is brought vividly to life.
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Engaging read but dubious sentiment
- By T.G. on 04-23-20
By: Frederic Morton
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21st Century Monetary Policy
- The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19
- By: Ben S. Bernanke
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Overall
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Performance
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A former chair of the Federal Reserve explains the transformation of one our most powerful and consequential institutions.
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don't buy, horrible narration
- By Mr. Incognito on 05-18-22
By: Ben S. Bernanke
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A Short History of Financial Euphoria
- By: John Kenneth Galbraith
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 2 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With incomparable wisdom, skill, and wit, world-renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith traces the history of the major speculative episodes in our economy over the last three centuries. Exposing the ways in which normally sane people display reckless behavior in pursuit of profit, Galbraith asserts that our "notoriously short" financial memory is what creates the conditions for market collapse. By recognizing these signs and understanding what causes them we can guard against future recessions and have a better hold on our country's (and our own) financial destiny.
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Good
- By SEB24 on 11-12-24
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Upheaval
- Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.
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The Urine of the Earth in a Teacup
- By Marian on 05-12-19
By: Jared Diamond
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Kissinger
- A Biography
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.
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A dissapointment
- By Mike From Mesa on 12-16-13
By: Walter Isaacson
What listeners say about Doom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rolf Tjeder
- 05-26-23
Great listen
I love most books by this author. He makes his arguments using reason and logic.
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- Sam Adams
- 02-16-22
Superb, as usual.
Ferguson provides the history of pandemic and humanity's reaction to them. Then he examines our reamction to Covid, the impact of those reactions and more. A fascinating read.
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- Diligent shopper in California
- 02-23-23
Excellent and insightful
Excellent read, very informative, insightful and enjoyable.
This is a rare instance where the author, who is an outstanding speaker, is also the narrator of his own book. Thank you! Wh
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-09-21
Historical Context
Ferguson’s “Doom” effectively situates covid 19 amongst other disasters in human history but also shows how a political disaster often develops after a natural one has occurred.
I enjoyed Niall’s review of the events of late 2019-2020 as even though these events where recent, key details could’ve easily been missed in the chaos of living through the pandemic.
Yet sometimes it felt as though the book was too heavily focused on Covid-19. Certainly this event was central to current political discourse but I fear that too many people are likely burned out of the pandemic.
All in all the book is worth a listen especially if you enjoy Ferguson’s work as I do. His unique style weaves popular culture, economics and political analysis into the dissection of historical events providing rich and thought provoking insights.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Ronald Hand
- 07-05-21
Not a cheery subject but a book worth reading.
Obviously a book with a lot of dates and statistics can get dry, but overall it was very good. It was well researched and he avoided partisanship. He allowed the facts to speak for themselves.
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- John Brynjolfsson
- 08-22-21
Dozens of historical episodes and vocabulary words on every page!
I’m just now enjoying Niall Ferguson’s “Doom” a thick volume, chock full of historical analysis.
I can’t help but thinking you’d enjoy it.
In particular each page seems to have a dozen or more important historical references, only 20% or 30% of which I had previously heard of.
I therefore enjoy having the gaps in my recollection filled in, and hopefully through assimilation, benefit from learning the new ones that flash by.
Topics range from mathematics, to computer science, to biology, politics, war, statecraft etc.
Listening to it on Audible has the advantage of listening to Naill’s pleasant accent at 1.33x speed. Lots of foreign words properly pronounced!!
Though the book, as title suggests, has a pessimistic tone, it’s hard to argue with the factual accounts, presumably backed up by recorded contemporaneous historical documents. Interpretation on the otherhand of course is subject to some biases, if only to dramatize or to weave a coherent narrative.
One interesting example is history of plagues.
Ferguson the historian, no relation to the famous Epidemiologist of same name, suggests that each medical advance of the Renaissance was greeted in following decades by social adaptation, (basically more densely inhabited cities, and more intercity trade) that used the advantages created by the advances to not just improve health, but to increase the virulence of subsequent plagues…essentially leaving society no better off 50 years later regarding morbidity.
Kind of like economists description of technological advances that don’t result in profits, because all competitors use the same efficiency gains to lower equilibrium prices.
And similar to urban planners dilemma.
In Southern California, I have witnessed, when a traffic jammed freeway is widened, new traffic immediately bottlenecks up again within weeks as new commuters jump on the widened road. And adding insult to injury, new home builders build 100,000 homes in the newly productive ex-urbs enabled by the widened road. The result being urban sprawl.
Anyhow each page seems to have a dozen vocabulary words or historical incidents, 70% which are new to me. That, I think, is indicative of me “learning.” Not a bad thing!
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- frank purcell
- 12-08-22
Excellent Content Well Told !
Niall Ferguson has beautifully told a
Somewhat Disturbing Story of our declining Position
in the World of International Politics .
Authoritative and Well Read !
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- David
- 05-23-21
Get through the first chapters
Get through the first three chapters. The rest is well worth your time. You will not regret the experience
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- Scott J. Jones MD
- 10-17-21
Skip Chapters 9-10
Overall an excellent book, in line with the authors previous works. He truly has a unique ability to take events from history and weave them into an uniquely interlocking and fresh perspective which will often leave you looking at things a little bit differently.
Unfortunately, when he wrote the book in August 2020 most of the information on Covid that was available to the public was either misinformation, politically skewed information, premature information, or flat out lies. I say this as a Stanford trained physician with a college degree in Biochemistry in Molecular biology and research experience in virology. So I know a little bit about the subject. Ferguson was clearly drinking the Kool-Aid in 2020.
So I would strongly suggest you simply skip chapters 9 and 10. They are a waste of your time, since the “facts” cited and Ferguson’s own bias are bewilderingly wrong over and over again.
Other than that, it is an excellent work.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-24-21
Published Too Soon
This book is generally great but too early to be anything but failingly prophetic regarding COVID (which Mr. Ferguson graciously admits in the introduction). The rest of the analyses, statistics and observations are unflinchingly unbiased and non-partisan which was a breath of fresh air in a time of narrative speculation and setting out to prove a point instead of delivering information. I particularly enjoyed the historical deep dive into the 'plague' of the 1950s in the US and the Bubonic Plague along with their societal implications and political failures.
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