On Plagues and Peoples

This book is a really important one, but it’s been so foundational that this piece has been eclipsed by numerous others. McNeill’s primary contribution is centering disease as a subject of historical analysis. Before this work, little thought had been given to disease’s role in world history. Clearly, disease was pervasive and affected everybody on earth, but nobody gave thought to the impact disease had on historical processes themselves. Now, there are numerous works that look at disease in a variety of periods and places. William McNeill’s own son, John McNeill, has followed in his father’s footsteps by producing Mosquito Empires, for example.

Because the work has been eclipsed, it is not nearly as important as it once was. Much of the text is rooted in hunches that McNeill has based on some level of evidence (although not enough). Thanks to advances in the sciences (and the powerful rise of the history of science/history of medicine), historians can now use data beyond historical documents to better examine the history of disease.