The Monster Enters COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism

A new edition of a classic book on viral catastrophes--the Spanish flu, the Avian flu, and now, Covid-19

In his book, The Monster at Our Door,  the renowned activist and author Mike Davis warned of a coming global threat of viral catastrophes. Now in this expanded edition of that 2005 book, Davis explains how the problems he warned of remain, and he sets the COVID-19  pandemic in the  context of previous disastrous outbreaks, notably the 1918 influenza  disaster that killed at least forty million people in three months and  the Avian flu of a decade and a half ago.

In language both accessible and authoritative, The Monster Enters  surveys the scientific and political roots of today’s viral apocalypse. In doing so it exposes the key roles of agribusiness and the fast-food industries, abetted by corrupt governments and a capitalist global  system careening out of control, in creating the ecological  pre-conditions for a plague that has brought much of human existence to a juddering halt.

A former meat cutter and truck driver, as well as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award, Mike Davis's many books include Set the Night on Fire, Planet of Slums, and Late Victorian Holocausts. He lives in San Diego.