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tanyarobinson 's review for:
The Black Death: A Personal History
by John Hatcher
I expected this book to be a grisly account of those suffering the disease - perhaps that appealed to me on some level. But that's not what it is at all (and perhaps that's why readers on this site haven't liked it more -- they wanted the macabre details).
The section of "The Black Death" dealing with the actual infection was brief. The majority of the book focused on the months leading up to the outbreak, as rumors of pestilence to the south reached Walsham (a small village in England) and the citizens were called to repentance, and the social turmoil that followed the decimation of the population. Hatcher sucked the very marrow out of Walsham's primary sources; though the fourteenth century overall is nearly undocumented, the local records for Walsham and its environs are strong.
The Black Death is a somewhat overworked topic, yet Thatcher adds something new to the scholarship. Not only is his "personal history" approach unique, but it also provides a clearer understanding than anything I've read before of how the black plague loosened the bonds of feudalism and undermined the authority of the Catholic clergy.
Overall, though the book was different from what I expected, I found it engaging, and a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in social history.
The section of "The Black Death" dealing with the actual infection was brief. The majority of the book focused on the months leading up to the outbreak, as rumors of pestilence to the south reached Walsham (a small village in England) and the citizens were called to repentance, and the social turmoil that followed the decimation of the population. Hatcher sucked the very marrow out of Walsham's primary sources; though the fourteenth century overall is nearly undocumented, the local records for Walsham and its environs are strong.
The Black Death is a somewhat overworked topic, yet Thatcher adds something new to the scholarship. Not only is his "personal history" approach unique, but it also provides a clearer understanding than anything I've read before of how the black plague loosened the bonds of feudalism and undermined the authority of the Catholic clergy.
Overall, though the book was different from what I expected, I found it engaging, and a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in social history.