
Plagues upon the Earth
Disease and the Course of Human History
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Narrated by:
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Tim Fannon
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By:
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Kyle Harper
About this listen
How pathogenic microbes have been an intimate part of human history from the beginning - and how our deadliest germs and biggest pandemics are the product of our success as a species.
Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues all around us, in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality. He also tells the story of humanity’s escape from infectious disease - a triumph that makes life as we know it possible, yet destabilizes the environment and fosters new diseases.
Panoramic in scope, Plagues upon the Earth traces role of disease in the transition to farming, the spread of cities, the advance of transportation, and the stupendous increase in human numbers. Harper offers a new interpretation of humanity’s path to control over infectious disease - one where rising evolutionary threats constantly push back against human progress, and where the devastating effects of modernization contribute to the great divergence between societies. The book reminds us that human health is globally interdependent - and inseparable from the well-being of the planet itself.
Putting the COVID-19 pandemic in perspective, Plagues upon the Earth tells the story of how we got here as a species, and it may help us decide where we want to go.
©2021 Kyle Harper (P)2021 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Jason on 04-01-22
By: Hal Gold, and others
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The Year Without Summer
- 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History
- By: William K. Klingaman, Nicholas P. Klingaman
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.
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Good audiobook to fall asleep to
- By Ellen NB on 02-24-20
By: William K. Klingaman, and others
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Origin Story
- A Big History of Everything
- By: David Christian
- Narrated by: Jamie Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day - and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence? These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History", the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.
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A brilliant achievement, must read/listen
- By 11104 on 09-05-18
By: David Christian
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Patient Zero
- A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases
- By: Lydia Kang MD, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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From the masters of storytelling-meets-science, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks—how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us. Written in the authors’ lively style, chapters include gripping medical stories about a particular disease or virus—smallpox, Bubonic plague, polio, HIV—that combine “Patient Zero” narratives, or the human stories behind outbreaks, with historical examinations of missteps, milestones, scientific theories, and more.
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Can’t listen to the reader
- By Doug Clyde on 07-21-22
By: Lydia Kang MD, and others
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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Pathogenesis
- A History of the World in Eight Plagues
- By: Jonathan Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Kennedy
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Devolves into political advocacy
- By Mark Fackler on 04-29-23
By: Jonathan Kennedy
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Histories
- By: Herodotus
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style. Perhaps most famously, the book tells the heroic tale of the Greeks' resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, king of Persia. Here are not only the great battles - Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis - but also penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of epic destiny at work.
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Best of Audible's "The Histories" by Herodotus
- By Emily on 07-19-16
By: Herodotus
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The White Plague
- By: Frank Herbert
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.
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Great book and not a rip off
- By Randall on 11-09-17
By: Frank Herbert
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The Great Mortality
- An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholars and the general public. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story. In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people—one third of the known population—before it vanished.
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The Great Mortality
- By Amazon Customer on 10-16-24
By: John Kelly
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Quackery
- A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
- By: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
- By Nemo on 12-28-18
By: Lydia Kang, and others
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The Unsettling of America
- Culture & Agriculture
- By: Wendell Berry
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it.
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love the material, meh on the performance.
- By Fireham on 07-10-20
By: Wendell Berry
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Pax
- War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. Pax is a captivating narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland shows ancient Rome in all its glory
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Great book!
- By Mic on 09-27-23
By: Tom Holland
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The Forgotten Soldier
- By: Guy Sajer
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue, and constant deprivation. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland division, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive.
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A Beautifully Written Heartrending Tragedy
- By Gillian on 03-31-17
By: Guy Sajer
What listeners say about Plagues upon the Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- fourputt
- 04-05-22
Impressive compilation by accomplished historian
As the most important third of guns, germs, and steel, Kyle Harper's book is a fascinating and comprehensive compilation of the natural history of the viruses, bacteria, protists, and helminths that affect every organism on the planet, especially certain of us primates.
(Helminths btw are worms and I should add that parts "Plagues" are definitely not for the squeamish.)
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- Adam
- 01-10-23
Exceptional
One of the most sweeping reimaginings of human history in decades. The level of detail is immense but not overbearing and technical details are explained well for the layperson. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.
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- Fred
- 07-21-24
Excellent
A very well done account of a vitally important subject. Deserves very wide readership by the general public. But it would prove critically valuable to medical personnel, scientists and, especially, governmental officials.
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- Miguel
- 04-07-22
Astounding
Brilliantly written and performed. Just the history alone is worth the listen. A tale of human survival and suffering.
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- Wyatt
- 09-19-23
Fascinating. history through the lens of disease
It's a weighty book but I'll never think of the distant past in the same way. I loved how this changed my view of the way history unfolded as a function of disease burden.
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- Jonathan Walker
- 09-16-23
Must read
I’ am a doctor with long-standing interest in the subject of infectious disease. The presentation of this subject through the lens of human social history broadened my grasp of both history and medicine. What a treasure!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kathleen A. Massey
- 12-29-21
Waste of time...endless dribble.
Author is to busy trying to sound intelligent, Narrator mechanically does his best. Use it to put yourself to sleep.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Talia
- 01-16-23
Agreed, the narrator ruins it
The story is interesting and I would have listened to the whole thing if I could have tolerated the narrator. But, I could not. I quit after a few hours, in the middle of a really interesting chapter about the Neolithic, because I couldn't take his narration anymore. The other reviewer who mentioned the mispronounced words was correct, and these are not just scientific words. Some of them are just regular multisyllabic words that you hear out of people's mouths on a routine basis. More irritatingly, the narrator uses the same singsong inflection at the end of every sentence. The next-to-last syllable is uttered at a higher pitch than the rest of the sentence. This wouldn't be bad at all if it occurred every few minutes, but the sing-song cadence is at the end of 95% of the sentences. It starts to get to the point where you're just listening to the sentence waiting for the sing-SONG-iness about the neolithic revol-U-tion. Too distracting; I returned it.
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- HWAG
- 03-16-22
Horrific narration
The narrator ruins this. I’m sorry to be so harsh, but he’s not smart enough to be presenting this material. I lost count of the mispronunciations, which are extremely jarring. I have to imagine the author was shocked when he heard this. They need to try again.
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4 people found this helpful