TMG 1 (2014): Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death, ed. Monica Green

Authors

Monica H. Green, Arizona State UniversityFollow
Carol Symes, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignFollow
Anna Colet, Museu Comarcal de l’Urgell-TàrregaFollow
Josep Xavier Muntané i Santiveri, Institut d’Estudis Món Juïc
Jordi Ruíz, Museu Comarcal de l’Urgell-Tàrrega
Oriol Saula, Museu Comarcal de l’Urgell-Tàrrega
M. Eulàlia Subirà de Galdàcano, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Clara Jáuregui, Universitat de Barcelona
Sharon N. DeWitte, University of South CarolinaFollow
Stuart Borsch, Assumption CollegeFollow
Ann G. Carmichael, Indiana University (emerita)Follow
Nükhet Varlık, Rutgers University - NewarkFollow
Fabian Crespo, University of LouisvilleFollow
Matt B. Lawrenz, University of LouisvilleFollow
Michelle Ziegler, Saint Louis UniversityFollow
Robert Hymes, Columbia UniversityFollow
Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Saint Louis UniversityFollow
Wolfgang P. Müller, Fordham UniversityFollow

Document Type

Book

Files

Description

The plague organism (Yersinia pestis) killed an estimated 40% to 60% of all people when it spread rapidly through the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe in the fourteenth century: an event known as the Black Death. Previous research has shown, especially for Western Europe, how population losses then led to structural economic, political, and social changes. But why and how did the pandemic happen in the first place? When and where did it begin? How was it sustained? What was its full geographic extent? And when did it really end?

Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World is the first book to synthesize the new evidence and research methods that are providing fresh answers to these crucial questions. It was only in 2011, thanks to ancient DNA recovered from remains unearthed in London’s East Smithfield cemetery, that the full genome of the plague pathogen was identified. This single-celled organism probably originated 3000-4000 years ago and has caused three pandemics in recorded history: the Justinianic (or First) Plague Pandemic, around 541-750; the Black Death (Second Plague Pandemic), conventionally dated to the 1340s; and the Third Plague Pandemic, usually dated from around 1894 to the 1930s. This ground-breaking book brings together scholars from the humanities and social and physical sci­ences to address the question of how recent work in genetics, zoology, and epi­de­miology can enable a rethinking of the Black Death's global reach and its larger historical significance. It forms the inaugural double issue of The Medieval Globe, a new journal sponsored by the Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This issue of The Medieval Globe is published with the support of the World History Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

ISBN

978-1-942401-04-9

Publication Date

2014

Publisher

Arc Medieval Press

Disciplines

European History | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Medieval History | Medieval Studies

Comments

For submission guidelines and additional information about The Medieval Globe, please visit http://www.arc-humanities.org/the-medieval-globe.html.

To purchase the physical version of this volume, which will be available in January of 2015, please visit http://www.arc-humanities.org/tmg-1-2014.

Citation for published book

Green, Monica, ed. Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death. The Medieval Globe 1 (2014).

Recommended Citation

Green, Monica H.; Symes, Carol; Colet, Anna; Muntané i Santiveri, Josep Xavier; Ruíz, Jordi; Saula, Oriol; Subirà de Galdàcano, M. Eulàlia; Jáuregui, Clara; DeWitte, Sharon N.; Borsch, Stuart; Carmichael, Ann G.; Varlık, Nükhet; Crespo, Fabian; Lawrenz, Matt B.; Ziegler, Michelle; Hymes, Robert; Walker-Meikle, Kathleen; and Müller, Wolfgang P., "TMG 1 (2014): Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death, ed. Monica Green" (2014). The Medieval Globe Books. 1.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1