Overview

A sweeping examination of how germs have played a starring role in the most significant transformations in history, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the creation of world religions and the birth of capitalism.     According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, to actions undertaken individually and collectively that have changed the arc of history. In this revelatory book, sociologist and public health professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the peddlers of the exceptionalism myth massively overestimate the role that reason plays in social change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.     Drawing on the latest research in genetics, economics, sociology, and anthropology, Pathogenesis explores eight outbreaks of infectious disease that made the modern world. Take the rise of Christianity. When a wave of deadly pandemics swept through the Roman Empire in the third century, there were only a small number of Christian communities—but they did a much better job tending to the sick. Their more communal approach saved thousands of lives, and helped turn this tiny, obscure sect into one of the world's great religions. Bacteria and viruses were also responsible for the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the rise of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower.     By centering disease in his wide-ranging, spectacularly illustrated history of humankind, Kennedy challenges our most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view our current moment as another disease-driven inflection point that could change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.

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9780771096808

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Reviews

“Thrilling and eye-opening . . . From neolithic diseases to Covid-19, Jonathan Kennedy explores the enormous role played by some of the tiniest life on earth: the power of plagues in shaping world history.”—Lewis Dartnell, author of The Knowledge “I love this surprising, learned, fascinating book; it brings human arrogance into sharp relief, reminding us that the real masters of the universe are microbes. Jonathan Kennedy travels through history, unpicking everything we thought we knew; we are but the pawns and playthings of viruses and bacteria. . . . Mind-blowing stuff.”—Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment “This book challenges some of the greatest clichés about colonialism and leaves you wondering why you ever gave them the time of day. . . . A revelation.”—Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland “From the fall of Rome to the Spanish conquest of the Americas to the Industrial Revolution, germs have played as much a role in history as guns, generals, and ‘great men.’ In a timely updating of William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples, Jonathan Kennedy restores the microbes of infectious disease to their rightful place in the story of human evolution and the rise and fall of civilizations. . . . History at its best.”—Mark Honigsbaum, author of The Pandemic Century “How a virus might have written human history . . . This is a fascinating, readable, and superbly researched account of how infectious diseases have shaped our history, from the Paleolithic Era to Covid.”—David Christian, author of Origin Story “Kennedy debuts with a virtuoso analysis of the fallout from encounters between deadly viral and bacterial pathogens and human populations that lacked immunity. . . . He marshals a wealth of surprising scholarship in lucid and succinct prose. The result is a fascinating look at history from the perspective of its tiniest protagonists.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Author Information

JONATHAN KENNEDY is  Senior Lecturer and Director of Global Public Health programmes at Barts and the London Medical School. He has appeared on the “World Tonight” talking about  the government’s response to COVID-19 and has been quoted in a range of British newspapers on issues related to the link between politics and public health, including the Economist, the Guardian, The Times, the Telegraph, Independent, and Daily Mail. Kennedy writes op-eds in the Guardian, blogs for the London Review of Books and has published opinion pieces in El Pais. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge.

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