
Pathogenesis
A History of the World in Eight Plagues
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Kennedy
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By:
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Jonathan Kennedy
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “gripping” (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs
“Superbly written . . . Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.”—The Times (U.K.)
According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world’s major religions.
By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.
©2023 Jonathan Kennedy (P)2023 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[Kennedy] wrangles an astonishing breadth of material into easily accessible, plain prose. . . . Even readers familiar with the material will find [Pathogenesis] fascinating. . . . Kennedy will leave readers galvanized by the time they flip to the last page, having assured us that we could win the narrative back from germs—if we’re able to muster the political will to do so. Pathogenesis puts us in our rightful tiny place in the universe as this great, big—and terrifying, at times—world spins. But, Kennedy reminds us, we are not helpless.” —The Washington Post
“Full of amazing facts . . . Pathogenesis doesn’t only cover thousands of years of history—it seeks radically to alter the way the reader views many of the (often very well-known) events it describes.” —The Guardian
“Well-timed . . . [and] compelling . . . Kennedy’s book manages to end on a somewhat hopeful note. Yes, our trajectory is defined by microbes. But it’s also influenced by our reactions to them—and our acknowledgment of their power.” —The Atlantic
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The Black Angels
- The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Maria Smilios
- Narrated by: Gina Daniels
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven people, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility, dubbed “the pest house” where “no one left alive.”
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Tons of amazing medical American/black history that easily reads like your favorite novel.
- By Infowiz on 01-31-24
By: Maria Smilios
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Destiny Disrupted
- A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
- By: Tamim Ansary
- Narrated by: Tamim Ansary
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from a new perspective: with the evolution of the Muslim community at the center. His story moves from the lifetime of Mohammed through a succession of far-flung empires, to the tangle of modern conflicts that culminated in the events of 9/11. He introduces the key people, events, ideas, legends, religious disputes, and turning points of world history, imparting not only what happened but how it is understood from the Muslim perspective.
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You cannot know a person until you know how he sees himself.
- By Chaim J. on 05-02-25
By: Tamim Ansary
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Ghosts of the Tsunami
- Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone
- By: Richard Lloyd Parry
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.
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Riveting True Story You Didn't Hear On The News
- By Kathy in CA on 07-05-18
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How Far the Light Reaches
- A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
- By: Sabrina Imbler
- Narrated by: Sabrina Imbler
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating tour of creatures from the surface to the deepest ocean floor: How Far the Light Reaches invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live. Conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth.
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THIS IS A MEMOIR
- By Joseph Gee on 03-17-23
By: Sabrina Imbler
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A Light in the Dark
- Surviving More Than Ted Bundy
- By: Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Kathy Kleiner Rubin
- Narrated by: Roxana Ortega
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1978, I slept in my bed at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University as Ted Bundy stalked nearby. He grabbed an oak log from a stack of firewood, slipped through a back door with a broken padlock, and headed upstairs.He began twisting doorknobs. Room 9 was open, and he quietly and quickly killed one of my sleeping sorority sisters. Across the hall, he found another unlocked door and murdered again. Then, he turned the knob to my bedroom and found it was open. I remember the attack vividly. But Bundy wasn’t my first brush with death, and he wasn’t my last.
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Remembering victims
- By Kindle Customer on 10-04-24
By: Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, and others
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Infectious
- Pathogens and How We Fight Them
- By: John Tregoning
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The subject of infection and how to fight it grows more urgent every day. How do pathogens cause disease? And what tools can we give our bodies to do battle? Dr. John S. Tregoning has dedicated his career to answering these questions. Infectious uncovers fascinating success stories in immunology and virology, making this book not only a vital overview of infection but also a hopeful history of human ingenuity.
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Infectious
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-23
By: John Tregoning
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
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Some good info but
- By Dogs Land on 10-23-24
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Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
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very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
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The American Plague
- The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country - and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
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Yellow Fever in Memphis
- By Kevin P Key on 04-13-20
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Unmask Alice
- LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries
- By: Rick Emerson
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.
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I’m from Pleasant Grove where rumors of Jay’s Journal are alive and well
- By Ruby Tuesday on 10-06-22
By: Rick Emerson
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Breathless
- The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Breathless is story of SARs-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientists who study its origin, its ever-changing nature, and its capacity to kill us. David Quammen expertly shows how strange new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems and how those viruses adapt to their human hosts, sometimes causing global catastrophe. He explains why this coronavirus will probably be a “forever virus,” destined to circulate among humans and bedevil us endlessly, in one variant form or another.
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Loved it!
- By Melissa on 03-10-23
By: David Quammen
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Cannibalism
- By: Bill Schutt
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.
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Ruined it at the end
- By Kimberly Ames on 12-07-17
By: Bill Schutt
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The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
What listeners say about Pathogenesis
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- DDC
- 05-09-23
Good start, poor ending
I got the book to learn more about pathogens and their impact on human development, and found it addressed that well. But towards the end, the author injected his political views which detracted from the topic and prevented a more thoughtful analysis of trends in pathogens. Moreover, the author’s political views were naive and lacked common sense, which in turn, retrospectively tainted the whole book. I will not recommend this book.
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- Julie Burton
- 06-09-24
Full existence in hours
Well it’s hypothetical and I appreciate that and also the magnitude of research it’s based on is so impressive and makes me try to pull it apart more—very time consuming and not really a negative.
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- Lynn
- 06-13-24
Give Us Science Not Opinion
Liked: first half of book was very informative.
Disliked: second half of book was largely the author's political opinions. it's not that I necessarily disagree with his opinions. It's that I didn't purchase the book for them.
Author did an adequate job narrating.
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- Jennifer S
- 07-23-24
Very interesting reas
This is a great non-fiction book that reads like fiction. Read this book, even if you're not big into science, this is a great book.
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- Choogi
- 04-23-23
Another Academic with a Hidden Agenda
Pathogenesis begins with great storytelling of our anthropological history woven with the apparent history of major disease outbreaks and the potential effects these diseases had on our history. But there is a point at which anthropology is put aside, and Kennedy’s personal opinions become the underlying narrative.
Whereas earlier parts of the book address a comprehensive view of the world’s humans and subpopulations, the later chapters focus on certain subpopulations and diseases as if to jump on the bandwagon of recent events to spark emotional response. Kennedy jumps the rails of telling of possible correlations between rises and falls of societies with disease outbreaks and takes a sharp turn into pushing personal ideals about how societies should govern public health. The author is entitled to his opinions, but he is far from qualified to dictate how world health should be governed. Further, the information presented in the book is insufficient for drawing such conclusions as it leaves out presentation and discussion of many other diseases (including those made by our own presence on earth), socio-economic situations, and world events that deserve consideration.
Readers should keep in mind that many academics such as Kennedy conduct their research and write papers and books such as this one insulated within their university walls with a goal to gain attention to bring funding to their universities to ‘further their research’ (i.e., keep their jobs). It really is no different than the journalist who is skilled at writing gripping headlines that drive the consumers to click on the links of their articles just to get the ad views that drive their profits.
I thank the author for some delightful storytelling of anthropological history, but if you are looking for scientific information on the origin and history of diseases, as the title would lead you to believe, this book is not for you.
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- Barb in WI
- 07-04-23
Worth a read especially the early chapters
Early chapters fascinating. Political commentary of the later chapters obscures the argument and makes the book less compelling.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-26-24
Very interesting and elucidate book.
Very interesting and elucidate book. The story of the world is told by multiple perspectives and fundamented with scientific data. Great book. This would greatly benefit from having been read/performed by an experienced narrator. Great writer does not make a great narrator. Still a nice experience (due to the good quality writing).
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- Kavya T Rao
- 04-30-23
Great look at history and historical impacts of pathogens
Very high-level, but interesting and broad-ranging. Made me think about vaccine equity vs patents. Recommend mosquito by Timothy winegard for a deeper look into the impact of pathogens on human history.
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- Ricardo
- 05-16-23
Historically and scientifically accurate. Excellent pace
The attention to details is fantastic! From bringing up specific historians points of view to the many aspects of how much each plague affected their contemporary societies, this book deserves a second+ readings.
It felt almost like version of Sapiens but with a focus on the pathogens that made/make us.
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- Alan
- 06-03-23
Brilliant
Great . An unbelievable amount of unknowns. Terrific , a lot of great unknowns. Really recommended. Yes!
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