A review by sherwood
Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K. Randall

informative slow-paced

4.0

The wicked irony of this being published in late 2019. If I were this author, I would have said, finally! My book is published! I'm done! No longer do I have to spend my days reading and thinking about fatal contagious diseases- no more, I say, so more! Ah, what a nice break I'll have, in which I don't have to think about pandemics and how government response can fuel massive waves of racism towards marginalized groups used as scapegoats for a problem that government officials exacerbated with their own ineptitude! I am free! Free at last! Free to enjoy my New Years among friends and family, who I will obviously continue to see often, indoors, at large events, frequently. Bon Voyage, my friends, I hope that 2020 treats you well! 

I am not this author, and I live in 2022, and in hindsight, maybe the only time this book could have been written was directly before 2020. It walks a perfect tightrope walk between narrative and fact, and takes the time to explore every little facet of a problem- just as epidemiologists do. Randall stuck a stick of dynamite in the issue and sent all the plague-ridden facts scurrying from their holes for him to collect and document. And he did it all while keeping the book around 300 pages. 


Also the only book I've read this year (or maybe ever?) that's included the word "rattery". 

9/10