Scan barcode
stephislas89's review against another edition
3.0
Loved reading about rowdy peasants. Read this book for a class, but I really enjoyed it!
athst's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a perfect little vignette of an Italian town that suffers from an outbreak of the plague in 1630-1631.
The author gives a good sense of the different people involved in the story and how they react to the situation. You also see the many of the dynamics in play during a plague: the effect of leadership quality, scientific uncertainty, religion, economic concerns, and human nature in general.
You'd think that after almost 400 years of progress, the human race would have progressed in its handling of outbreaks. But, reading this book in 2020, the funny thing is about how familiar it all seems—all of the problems described in it are the same ones that you read in the news every day.
The author gives a good sense of the different people involved in the story and how they react to the situation. You also see the many of the dynamics in play during a plague: the effect of leadership quality, scientific uncertainty, religion, economic concerns, and human nature in general.
You'd think that after almost 400 years of progress, the human race would have progressed in its handling of outbreaks. But, reading this book in 2020, the funny thing is about how familiar it all seems—all of the problems described in it are the same ones that you read in the news every day.
More...