Kari (deltatiger) reviewed on 4/1/2012 + 74 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This book was originally written in the 1970s, and although it is a "New Edition" it doesn't appear that the text has been updated at all. This means that the scientific information in the book is badly out of date; we know much more about viruses in general and the flu virus that caused the 1918 outbreak in particular than the book says. If you are not concerned about more up-to-date science, the rest of the book is adequate.

This isn't nearly as good a book as John M. Barry's "The Great Influenza". That book is a more compelling read, and has the virtue of being written more recently so it has better scientific information. I would recommend that book much more strongly than this one, if you are willing to read a longer book.

However, this book is shorter, only 350 pages (about 1/3 of those taken up with references) to the 550 pages of Barry's book, and is easy to read. If you want a quick overview of what happened and how the flu spread, it's worth reading.

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