" The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History" by John M. Barry

Upon completion of this book, one is left with mixed feelings. Almost immediately it becomes apparent that an enormous effort went into researching and writing the story. At the same time one can’t escape the sense that the author struggled in the beginning with how he envisioned the structure of the book. For the first quarter of the book (roughly 140 pages), the readers suffers thorough agonizing details about the conditions of the medical schools in America at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Page after page, line after line, tiresome details of political influence and academic struggles to build the best medical system in the world (for one who is interested only in the Influenza pandemic, this appeared intrusive and out of place. Part 1 through 4 read like a PR campaign for Johns Hopkins University. The question lingers – Why? ).

To learn truly about the devastating effects of the disease, I highly recommend skipping to part 5 and reading all the way through part 10. This portion of the book tells a gruesome story and by far represents the most in-depth material I’ve found far as to the spread of the infections, statistical numbers as to the dead, as well as the measures to protect against (or lack of measures) taken by public officials.

The remainder of the book again dips into unnecessary biographical information of semi-successful researches hunting for the Influenza pathogen. If short on time, skip to the new Afterward, in which the author posses some critical questions regarding the current state of preparedness should another pandemic hit the world.

Overall, the book is good, but it drags in places. In the end, it is only worth for its research into the spread of the disease and its destructive effects.

-by Simon Cleveland