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A gripping tale of one of history's most bizarre events, and what it reveals about the strange possibilities of human nature
In the searing July heat of 1518, Frau Troffea stepped into the streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. Bathed in sweat, she continued to dance. Overcome with exhaustion, she stopped, and then resumed her solitary jig a few hours later. Over the next two months, roughly four hundred people succumbed to the same agonizing compulsion. At its peak, the epidemic claimed the lives of fifteen men, women, and children a day. Possibly 100 people danced to their deaths in one of the most bizarre and terrifying plagues in history.
John Waller compellingly evokes the sights, sounds, and aromas; the diseases and hardships; the fervent supernaturalism and the desperate hedonism of the late medieval world. Based on new evidence, he explains why the plague occurred and how it came to an end. In doing so, he sheds light on the strangest capabilities of the human mind and on our own susceptibility to mass hysteria.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Girlie Viray
reviewed Dancing Plague: The Strange True Story of an Extraordinary Illness on November 19, 2017
Dancing Plague
In Strasbourg, July 1518, a lone woman started dancing and could not stop. She eventually collapsed from exhaustion, then woke up and started dancing again, and the cycle continued until her feet were bloodied and those around her sent her off to the shrine of St. Vitus some way away, in the hopes of a miraculous cure.
(This is truth, by the way. Not fiction. This is a popular history book, not one of the fantasy novels I keep reading.)
Soon enough, dozens of other people had started dancing uncontrollably, until the city authorities intervened and tried to save their population from this newest and most terrifying of contagious plagues.
I knew a little bit about the story in advance - I think it got mentioned somewhere and I wiki-ed it for more info, then was disappointed by how little I could find out about it. Naturally, this book caught my eye immediately when I saw it.
John Waller recreates a bit of the society back at the time, complete with famine, debts, and a corrupt church - a desperate age, with desperate people at the end of their hope, believing that God and his saints were punishing them. And he proposes an explanation for the dancing plague: mass hysteria. He makes a pretty good case for it, too.
It's a fairly short and easily readable book and, while it contains fewer details about the things that happened to those who survived the dancing plague than I'd have hoped, it's an interesting read.
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Add Dancing Plague: The Strange True Story of an Extraordinary Illness, A gripping tale of one of history's most bizarre events, and what it reveals about the strange possibilities of human nature In the searing July heat of 1518, Frau Troffea stepped into the streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. Bathed in sw, Dancing Plague: The Strange True Story of an Extraordinary Illness to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Dancing Plague: The Strange True Story of an Extraordinary Illness, A gripping tale of one of history's most bizarre events, and what it reveals about the strange possibilities of human nature In the searing July heat of 1518, Frau Troffea stepped into the streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. Bathed in sw, Dancing Plague: The Strange True Story of an Extraordinary Illness to your collection on WonderClub |
