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A review by katiescho741
The Great Mortality by John Kelly
4.0
I love The Black Death, and I really enjoyed this book. I liked the way that Kelly deals with the sprawling nature of the plague by breaking the story down by country, and then by major cities/towns within each chapter. You would think that it's all the same story - plague arrives, people die, plague leaves - but each location has had a different reaction to the plague, as well as different types of chroniclers, and it's interesting to see the different human reactions to such events.
The Jewish aspect was interesting, however, I don't think he needed to write an entire chapter about Jewish oppression for the previous 1000 years. It was the one section that bored me as it added nothing to the story of the Black Death.
This is a great history for anyone with an interest in disease or who wants a general history of the Black Death itself. The map at the start is great aswell.
The Jewish aspect was interesting, however, I don't think he needed to write an entire chapter about Jewish oppression for the previous 1000 years. It was the one section that bored me as it added nothing to the story of the Black Death.
This is a great history for anyone with an interest in disease or who wants a general history of the Black Death itself. The map at the start is great aswell.