Encyclopedia of the Black Death

Encyclopedia of the Black Death is the first A-Z encyclopaedia to cover the second plague pandemic (1347-1770) balancing medical history with historical, cultural, social, and political factors and effects in Europe and the Islamic world. It also bookends the period with entries on Biblical plagues and the Plague of Justinian, as well as modern-era material regarding related topics, such as the work of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the Third Plague Pandemic of the mid-1800s, and plague in the United States. Unlike previous encyclopaedic works about this subject that deal broadly with infectious disease and its social or historical contexts, this interdisciplinary work synthesizes much of the research on the plague and related medical history published in the last decade in accessible, compellingly written entries. Controversial subject areas such as whether "plague" was bubonic plague and the geographic source of plague are treated in a balanced and impartial manner.