On the Great Influenza

I picked up this work, as I was looking for material on a period that echoes the pandemic we see today. In some ways, this book fits the bill, but it falls short. Barry instead wrote a very different book from what I was hoping for, and I can’t fault him too much for that. This is very much a history of medicine angle on the Spanish Flu, looking at the history of medical practice and the race to find a cure for the disease. There is some writing on the social and cultural aspects of the disease, but it’s a minority of the work. If anyone knows another book that discusses the way that society in the United States (or elsewhere) responded to the disease, please let me know!