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

5.0

AMERICANS AS A SOCIETY HAVE LEARNED NOTHING IN 100 YEARS

It was....uh...quite the time listening to this in 2022, with such lines as "He [the scientist trying to push an early vaccine and who has the most understanding of Y. pestis] could only watch as men with no scientific understanding shaped public opinion against him" and "He believed in a future where scientists had rendered the concept of infectious diseases moot, saving millions of innocent lives; instead he had to face a present where politics mattered more than honesty and ignorance more than medicine".

Though aside from having to pause more than a few times to just stare into space at how the social aspects just repeated (complete with racism, xenophobia, "but the economy", "plague is just a hoax, there's no real danger", and such), it really was fascinating. There were a number of timing and natural factors that kept it from being more widespread, but really we should all appreciate Rupert Blue a lot more and hate power play politics for stopping him so many times.

Also don't play with squirrels.