Pale Rider
The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
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Pale Rider
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Narrated by:
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Paul Hodgson
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Written by:
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Laura Spinney
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I.
In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test.
Laura Spinney demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant – if not more so – as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.
©2017 Laura Spinney (P)2020 Penguin AudioWhat the critics say
"Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story...Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past." (Guardian)
What listeners say about Pale Rider
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- andrew
- 2020-06-23
Factual but none linear
Rather a patchy none linear account that jumps around a lot. I prefer The Great Influenza by John Barry although the science in Pale Rider is more up to date. As a result of the constant switching of chapter themes there is some repetition of information, for example, parts of the pandemic's story relating to Samoa. The origin story (patient zero) seems to be gone over in several places. In some places the author would say I'll return to this later rather than giving a full account of a specific event. Some detail was over elaborate where anecdotes would go on and on without an obvious point. The postulated effects of the pandemic on historical events were interesting but much of this is speculation.
There are some very interesting stories that are not covered. For example the exhumation of Sir Mark Sykes, co-author of the Sykes-Picot agreement, in 2007 to try and get viral DNA as he was buried in a lead lined casket. The Paris Peace conference where Sykes attended and died of H1N1 in his hotel room is however mentioned. T E Lawrence left the conference to go to his dying father as the author states.
I found the narrator's voice rather boring.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- A
- 2020-09-14
decent book
Good book, without being great. As mentioned by other reviewers, this book does not go in chronological order but jumps around in time depending on what each chapter is about. this can be a bit confusing, but still overall a decent listen.
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