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A review by heykellyjensen
Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K. Randall
A fascinating, engrossing, and at times downright enraging look at the spread of bubonic plague in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. The book follows how two doctors recognized what was going on and how one was let down turn after turn, allowing the disease to spread because of inadequate funding and support -- as well as rampant xenophobia and racism -- while the other doctor was able to make inroads and discover that it was a specific type of flea that spread the disease to rats and then onto people. He helped develop a public health system and ways to combat the further spread of plague (even though anyone who has spent time in the west or southwest knows it exists still, and that's touched on here a bit in regards to the wild squirrels).
Randall doesn't shy away from the realities of racism and classism, and he does a great job framing the situation in San Francisco with the greater things going on in the US and around the world at the same time. The earthquake is covered and offers sort of the ah ha moment of figuring out why the disease was spreading the way it was, followed later by further understanding of its spreading in Los Angeles following World War I and the Spanish Influenza.
The history of disease, and plague especially, is fascinating to me, and Randall writes the history in a compelling, engaging manner. Readers who dig this and are open to reading nonfiction for youth would do well with [b:Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America|25898508|Bubonic Panic When Plague Invaded America|Gail Jarrow|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447716936s/25898508.jpg|45781367] as well, which is how I was already aware of the history of the plague in America.
Randall doesn't shy away from the realities of racism and classism, and he does a great job framing the situation in San Francisco with the greater things going on in the US and around the world at the same time. The earthquake is covered and offers sort of the ah ha moment of figuring out why the disease was spreading the way it was, followed later by further understanding of its spreading in Los Angeles following World War I and the Spanish Influenza.
The history of disease, and plague especially, is fascinating to me, and Randall writes the history in a compelling, engaging manner. Readers who dig this and are open to reading nonfiction for youth would do well with [b:Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America|25898508|Bubonic Panic When Plague Invaded America|Gail Jarrow|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447716936s/25898508.jpg|45781367] as well, which is how I was already aware of the history of the plague in America.