I'd never thought of the Black Death beyond its being an unimaginable human tragedy. It's almost impossible to think of a world in which up to half the inhabitants of your community die a horrible and quick death in a three year period. Not just those in your community, but in your region. Not just in your region, but in your country, and througout Europe. Population numbers took nearly four centuries to recover.

Cantor however focusses on the plague, linking it both to bubonic plague and to anthrax. He discusses how its ravages had an impact on every possible area of life: on internal and external politics, on royal, noble and yeoman dynasties, on class structures, economics, religious thought, on war. He looks at how earlier outbreaks of such plagues affected the decline of the Roman Enpire. He discusses how scientific thought at the time had little or nothing to offer in the fight against the disease. There's a lot here.

It's an interesting, often fascinating read. It is however a little disjointed, as though Cantor himself could nor decide how best to organise his material. The other jarring note comes when he frequently refers to the 'ranches' of sheep and cattle of the farms and estates of central and northern England.

However, as an introduction to aspects of medieval European history and the mindset of its inhabitants, this is an accessible and readable account. ( )

A very general survey of the topic. A few interesting bits on remedies tried at the time along with some speculative fairy tales on origin. Not much in the way of personal histories, but the point of the book was the overall effect. ( )

Borrrrrrrinnnnnnnng.

Too many unrelated tangents...much more a story of what was going on in the world at the same time as the plague. Not at all what I was expecting and often very dull.

There were a few redeeming bits like the story about the certain kind of brass that disappeared in 1349 (his conclusion was that the maker died in the plague); or just the general idea that significant portions of history would have played out much differently had the plague not happened (an obvious conclusion but still an interesting thought.)

I also thought it was interesting that so much blame was placed on the Jews. It's an eye-opening study to look at all the ways throughout history that Satan has tried to rid the earth of God's chosen people.

But yeah, if you're looking for a giant yawner, this book is the book for you. ( )

It took me more than a year, but tonight I finished this book. It's hard for me to review it because of my starts and stops. However, I can say that it started a lot stronger than it finished. The author, a pre-eminent middle ages historian, writes with a dryness befitting of his academic credentials. I had hoped this would be an engaging history of the black plague, however it read more like a personal indulgence of the knowledge of the author. Scattershot facts and unconnected anecdotes from the mid 14th century, without the singular focus on what caused the black death and how people dealt with it.

I found this book tucked into the back of a discount book store while traveling for work in Denver in the summer of 2019. I betrayed my own rule that life is too short to finish a book that's not keeping my attention. I guess I just kept hoping this would finally do something for me.

If you want an engaging history of the black death, I'd give this book a hard pass. I'm still looking for the "go-to" book on this topic. I'll keep hunting.

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Good quotes:

"You played the hand you were dealt, the life to which Christ had called you, and then it was over, frequently in childhood or adolescence, almost never after the age of fifty." -on the lifespan during the middle ages

"The nobility lived these short lives without a sense of irony. Funeral sermons delivered over the coffins by by mumbling bishops might indeed expatiate on the shortness and fragility of human life. But the nobility did not act that way, preferring the more visceral contact of the hunting dogs and hawks they loved than the anxiety-ridden, memory-dominated self-consciousness of affluent and well-educated people today."

"A consensus can be wrong." -about the causes of the black death
( )

A few critical reviews below have some measured points, and I thought I'd click some thumbs up and be done, but this book truly inspired me; the problem with most other reviews is that they seem to respect this book as being worthy of existence.

The book is rambling, repetitive muck.

By chapter 2 I had a mental sidebar of notes for a rage-review. I was so disgusted that I came to view Cantor's ridiculous overuse of the word "biomedical" as a major character flaw. It should have been thrown across the room after a few pages but I didn't want to damage anything more valuable than the book, like for example, anything. But it had to be finished. The final page had to be glimpsed. The depths had to be plumbed to see if I would run out of rope.

Some highlights for LibraryThing posterity:
Edward II's anal-rape murder "partly" reflected the Church's attitude toward homosexuality, but also reflected contemporary attitudes toward global weather patterns.
Edward III ravaged 25% of 1/3 of France.
Plantagenet Joan is constantly referred to as "little princess", so by the 3rd or 4th instance I am searching for endnotes to see if she was actually little, but no, it was just pointlessly derogatory.
In a spectacular display of relevance to plague transmission, Cantor spends an entire page of his measly 200 describing Joan's wardrobe (she had lots of buttons), seemingly for the sole purpose of punchlining the English monarchy's lack of taste "then or now".
Cantor refers to Joan as a "top-drawer white girl". That is top-shelf history right there. Approximately here I stopped cataloging disgust and just doggy-paddled the rest of the way through the slop. Slop which includes an entire section on the possibility of alien plague dust causing the epidemic.

Trees died for this - living, respirating, sun-loving trees. Absolutely, completely, unworthy of an NYU professor and Princeton Fellow, and perversely, so perversely, I am looking forward to reading Cantor's "Civilization", though I don't know if I'm searching for his redemption or more stench from the putrefaction of Academia.

This book is a plague about a plague and even reviews about it are a waste of time. ( )