Deep Dive into Prior Pandemics: Part 1, Books on Pandemics
Timeless Lessons About Human Behavior When I first saw the pandemic spread West from Wuhan as I sat in my Qatar office, the New York Times published a list of seven books on pandemics . Being an academic who likes to use "teachable moments" to increase my own knowledge and understanding, I ordered all of them. They arrived in Doha just as officials ordered educators to start distance learning on March 10. Safe at home and free of many campus-related responsibilities, I now had more time to read, and so I did. I started with the book on Ebola in 20th century US, then cholera in 19th century England, then the Black Plague in 14th century France, then malaria across the centuries and across the world, then the Spanish flu in 20th century US, and most recently smallpox in the US during the Revolutionary War period. I am now reading a book that asks how we plan to handle future pandemics . I still need to read the book on HIV/AIDS , a pandemic I rem