In the dying months of the First World War, Spanish Flu suddenly overwhelmed the globe, killing up to 100 million people. it was one of the most devastating natural disasters in world history ...
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'Offers us a coherent, well-researched and sanitary reminder that another pandemic could be just around the corner with equally horrific consequences.' - Sir Tony Robinson
'Fascinating ... lurid and pacy ... the page-turning fascination of a detective thriller.' - BBC History Magazine
'A remarkable job ... arresting and intimate narrative.' - New Statesman
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But behind the staggering figures are human lives, stories of those who suffered and those who fought back - at the Front, at home, in the hospitals and laboratories. Digging into archives, unpublished records, memoirs, diaries and government documents, Catharine Arnold traces the course of the disease through the accounts of those who experienced it - from those in high office to the ordinary people: the troops, nurses, miners, labourers, and many others who were left with no memorial.

100 years after the disease burned its way across the globe, this stingingly prescient book examines the lessons that devastating outbreak taught us - and those we perhaps did not learn in time, as Covid-19 wreaks havoc across the world in 2020.

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was the greatest human disaster of the 20th century and most likely in all recorded history. This is a moving, unique and highly prescient history, filled with eye-witness accounts.

About the Author
Catharine Arnold is the author of the much-acclaimed London quartet, a series about the dark side of the capital, consisting of Necropolis, London and its Dead, Bedlam, London and its Mad, City of Sin, London and its Vices and Underworld, London City of Crime and Punishment. Her first novel, Lost Time, won a Betty Trask Award. Catharine read English at the University of Cambridge and holds a further degree in psychology. She is a popular TV presenter and speaker.

Reviews
Catharine Arnold's book offers us a coherent, well-researched and sanitary reminder that another pandemic could be just around the corner with equally horrific consequences. -- Sir Tony Robinson
Fascinating ... lurid and pacy ... the page-turning fascination of a detective thriller. * BBC History Magazine *
Catharine Arnold has done a remarkable job of relating the tales of a diverse set of sufferers, crafting an arresting and intimate narrative of the 1918 pandemic ... a gripping tale that swoops down into the grisly detail, then soars up to give a broad view over the landscape of this calamitous moment in human history ... Arnold writes beautifully, and starkly, of the tragedy that unfolded. * New Statesman *



Book Information
ISBN 9781789292930
Author Catharine Arnold
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Michael O'Mara Books Ltd
Publisher Michael O'Mara Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 350g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 27mm