Black Death

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  3/13/2022
  

  The Plague, in the Plague: Have Black Death Comparisons Taught us Anything?

  by Peter Manseau

  The author of a new novel of the Black Plague and the co-author of a revisionist book on the medieval period discuss the tendency to make "rainbow connections" between past and present that oversimplify events to give moral guidance. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/10/2022
  

  Was the Black Death Less Severe and Shorter than We Think?

  by Adam Izdebski, Alessia Masi and Timothy P. Newfield

  "While no two pandemics are the same, the study of the past can help us discover where to look for our own vulnerabilities and how to best prepare for future outbreaks. To begin to do that, though, we need to reassess past epidemics with all the evidence we can."

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  3/25/2021
  

  Did the Black Death Rampage Across the World a Century Earlier Than Previously Thought?

  The application of DNA testing technology to the bodies of people from the medieval era suggests that the Black Death was present much earlier than believed. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  5/7/2020
  

  Pandemics of the Past

  by Jon Meacham

  "It’s too early to know where our own battle against Covid-19 will lead us — the fight is far from over — but the nonfiction literature of plague reveals that pandemics, while ending individual human lives, can mark the beginnings of new ways of being and of thinking," writes historian Jon Meacham.

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  4/9/2020
  

  Can a Pandemic Remake Society? A Historian Explains.

  It’s happened before. Here’s what it would take to happen again.

• 
• SOURCE: Market Watch
  4/1/2020
  

  I’m A Historian Who Has Studied the Black Death. During My Coronavirus Quarantine, I Thought, ‘Will People Fear Us?’

  by Alizah Holstein

  ‘As an early COVID-19 patient in my area, I have seen firsthand the power of a community poised to help,’ writes historian Alizah Holstein.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/30/2020
  

  Pandemics and the Shape of Human History

  Outbreaks have sparked riots and propelled public-health innovations, prefigured revolutions and redrawn maps.

• 
• SOURCE: Science Magazine
  3/6/19
  

  The Black Death may have transformed medieval societies in sub-Saharan Africa

  Some researchers point to new evidence from archaeology, history, and genetics to argue that the Black Death likely did sow devastation in medieval sub-Saharan Africa. 

• 
• SOURCE: NYT
  9-17-18
  

  Europe’s Triumphs and Troubles Are Written in Swiss Ice

  Pollen frozen in ice in the Alps traces Europe’s calamities, since the time Macbeth ruled Scotland.

• 
• SOURCE: Wired
  5-24-16
  

  Black Death maps reveal how the plague devastated medieval Britain

  New data indicate the Black Death killed 45% of East England's population. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  6-4-14
  

  Can studying the Black Death help us figure out what’s gone wrong in Third World countries?

  by Peter Temin

  The Black Death led to an improvement in agricultural technology, changed the status of women, and increased wages.

• 
• SOURCE: BBC
  5-7-14
  

  Black Death skeletons give up secrets of life and death

  The medieval Black Death led to better health for future generations, according to an analysis of skeletons in London cemeteries.

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3-29-14
  

  Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers

  Evidence from skulls in east London shows plague had to have been airborne to spread so quickly.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Scientist
  1-28-14
  

  Plague of Justinian confirmed as Black Death

  New DNA sequencing shows that the Plague of Justinian was in fact the bubonic plague.

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  9-5-13
  

  How the Black Death Spawned the Minimum Wage

  by Stephen Mihm

  How a European labor shortage after the plague led to greater economic equality.

• SOURCE: Archaeology News Network
  3-15-13
  

  Black Death skeletons unearthed at rail site

  Workers building a new railway in London have unearthed 13 skeletons thought to be victims of the Black Death plague that swept through Europe in the 14th century, archaeologists said on Friday.The remains were dug up at Charterhouse Square in central London during excavation work for the city's £15 billion ($22.7 billion, 17.4 billion euro) Crossrail project. Archaeologists believe the site could be the location of a plague cemetery described in medieval records, where up to 50,000 victims of the Black Death were buried. The plague wiped out a third of Europe's population between 1348 and 1353. "The depth of burials, the pottery found with the skeletons and the way the skeletons have been set out all point towards this being part of the 14th century emergency burial ground," said Jay Carver, Crossrail's lead archaeologist....