Reviews for The Black Death and the Transformation of the West

The average rating for The Black Death and the Transformation of the West based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-05-01 00:00:00 Paul Silano History. Look there. We never change. This book, published posthumously from David Herlihy's lecture notes, provoked my conscience. What do I remember most from medical school's study of microscopic pathogens? How Yersinia Pestis looks under the microscope, yes, but mostly Ignaz Semmelweis, who fought for women's lives when he recognized that postpartum deaths were being caused by doctors examining new mothers sequentially without washing their hands - thus spreading the bacteria that caused fatal puerperal fever from one to the next. Doctors, offended at the very idea! that they could be the vectors of disease, mocked him into a nervous breakdown. He died, after being beaten by a guard in the asylum at the age of 47. He was trolled to death in 1865. 700 years ago it was clear why people of color are dying now at a much higher rate than white people in the USA. Then: "..burdensome taxes in the countryside heaped on those least able to pay, and poor living standards for the mass of the population - that formed the crucible from which pestilence, even if delayed, would emerge by the mid-fourteenth century to change the ecology of Europe." As of yesterday every single death in the city of St. Louis (known for the murder of Michael Brown, Jr.) has been African American. Herlihy posits that the plague in the 14th century uprooted the theories of Malthus that populations are only controlled by "positive" controls - famines, wars, and yes, epidemics - and brought to Europe "preventative" controls such as waiting to procreate until one had the resources to marry and support a family - and uses data to show this argument's validity. After the plague the size of a family correlated with the amount of land they owned, for instance. "It broke the Malthusian deadlock that medieval growth had created and which might have impeded further growth in different forms. It guaranteed that in the generations after 1348 Europe would not simply continue the pattern of society and culture of the 13th century. It assured that the Middle Ages would be the middle, not the final, phase in Western development." Could we do this now? And not "simply continue the patterns" that put all life on this planet in mortal danger? Can we use this disaster to slow the climate apocalypse, for instance? "In considering the effect of the epidemics upon the economy, it is necessary to distinguish between short-term and long-term repercussions. The chief short-term repercussion was shock. And shock in turn broke the continuities of economic life and disrupted established routines of work and service." Again, as in feudal Europe, we live in a time of insanely inequitable economic distribution. Now, however, it is much more severe than 700 years ago. Then 8 people did not own more than 6+ billion other people combined. It is beyond the time to disrupt "established routines of work and service" and demand basic human rights for everyone. Almost angrily, a contemporaneous (oligarch?) of 14th century Florence, Matteo Villani, was among those who complained about the "extravagant tastes for food and attire which the lower social orders now manifested" and remarked, "The common people, by reason of the abundance and superfluidity that they found, would no longer work at their accustomed trades. They wanted the dearest and most delicate foods...while children and common women clad themselves in all the fair and costly garments of the illustrious…" Imagine that. Humans demanding the same quality of food and clothing as the higher "social orders". Simply outrageous. They should go back to "grazing on grass and vile herbs like cattle" (a description of how people lived during the famines preceding the Black Death) perhaps? The one-third of the population of Europe that remained after the plague of the 1300's was so scant that women were even allowed to testify as witnesses. Well, since they didn't have testicles, I guess they were allowed to ovari-fy. The similarities of that time with this suggest we really haven't evolved much as a species. Why does any unknown require a scapegoat? Trump wants to blame the Chinese! The World Health Organization! Wait, he'll find others. The 14th C plague was (of course) blamed on Jews, and the poor were the receptacles. Interestingly, in the footnotes was: ".. Jews, Indians, the French, and lepers as "the Other" sought out for blame with the spread of syphilis.." Right. I blame Henry VIII; I mean look at Mary Tudor's head - congenital syphilis for sure... but i digress. Interestingly: "In Moslem countries...Nor did the Black Death set off bitter factional rivalries in the East between Moslem neighbors or foster hatred of aliens and waves of anti-Semitic pogroms as it did in numerous localities throughout western Europe." It is up to us, now, to decide what we do with this, our crisis, our plague. Herlihy tells us that: "..the decline also stimulated efforts at reform and renewal. In other words, the decline was never so deep as to stifle awareness of decline." The high cost of labor resulting from 2/3rds or more of the workforce dying "promised big rewards to the inventors of labor saving devices. Chiefly, for this reason, the late Middle Ages were a period of impressive technological achievement." Will we, now, allow those Owners of the Wealth who replace humans with robotic innovation to become even more wealthy ? Or will we demand what is possible - sustainable prosperity for us all? Will we settle for a world where Trump demands meat-packers back to work in contaminated facilities, without any regard to their health? No demands for their protection or safety at all? Just give Donald Jackass Trump his cheeseburger! Or can we make another world? It took the plague to change feudalism. Will we see our food lines and lost housing and say....anything? Mother Earth Pachamama is giving us a Time Out, "go to your corner and think about what you have (and have not) done." Will we decide that change, that resistance, that One Love, that a future - is impossible?

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-28 00:00:00 David Dilling Interesting use of sources, bold conclusions and unfortunately wrong This short book is actually three chapters: 1) Bubonic Plague: Historical Epidemiology and the Medical Problems 2) The New Economic and Demographic System 3) Modes of Thought and Feeling In the first chapter Herlihy attempts to trace the cause(s) of the plague back through the Chinese epidemic in 1894 to the Medieval plagues of 1347-8. He questions the main culprit Yersinia Pestis and proposes, based on descriptive evidence from the victims, either tuberculosis, anthrax or Yersinia pseudo-tuberculosis. Then he moves on to a Malthusian description of Medieval life prior to the plague and noted that European health was greatly diminished by a series of famines prior to the outbreak. Herlihy concludes that the plague was not a "Malthusian reckoning or crisis, but a deadlock" (p. 38). What he means by deadlock is unclear, for surely the famines, wars and finally the plague seems to have been more than a deadlock. In the second chapter, he attempts to paint a balanced picture of the mid fourteenth century but ends up in self-contradiction. The Medieval world was both stagnant and dynamic, pre and post plague: "The economy was saturated; nearly all available resources were committed to the effort of producing food...to support packed communities...the civilization of the central Middle Ages, might have maintained itself for the indefinite future. That did not happen; an exogenous factor, the Black Death broke the Malthusian deadlock." (p.39) "Frequently too, the policy of factor substitution involved technological innovation, the development of entirely new tools and machines. High labor costs promise big rewards to the inventors of labor-saving devices. Chiefly for this reason, the late Middle Ages were a period of impressive technological achievement." (p. 49) What these advances were is not clear and Lynn White's and Jean Gimple's works not that most, if not all technological developments occured prior to the plague, resulting in growing populations, urbanization and the necessary criteria and conditions for something like the plague to occur. The final chapter, on thought and feeling, again vacillates between between conclusions. Herlihy notes that St. Francis calls death 'sister' but then after the plague death is transformed into "the ravishing monster, the master of the dance" (p. 63). But the surviving danse macabres (such as Hrastovlje) seem to confirm a continuity more than a transformation. Similarly, "Many spontaneous religious movements arose in the aftermath or even in anticipation of epidemics." (p. 66) If someone could explain what is meant by that line I would be eternally grateful. The medieval world was constantly seeing new religious movements, from the Cathars, Bogomils, Waldensians and Fraticelli to the Franciscans and Dominicans, Carthusians, Trappists and Cluniacs. The worlds prior to the plague was dynamic. Did the plague influence Europe, certainly. Herlihy is right on the decline in University studies, the rise in nomenalism, the rise of nationalism, the development of medicine but his connection to the plague is weak or left understated. And the discussion on the rise of religious names on page 76 is just odd. The rise in Christian names likely has as much to do with religious reasons as the current popularity of Christian names in our ever more secular western society.