{"product_id":"the-great-mortality-an-intimate-history-of-the-black-death-the-most-devastating-plague-of-all-time","title":"The Great Mortality : An Intimate History of the Black Death  the Most Devastating Plague of All Time","description":"\u003cp\u003ePowerful  rich with details  moving  humane  and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us.  Richard Rhodes  Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human historyeven more so now  when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern. The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics cant convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning  where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence. In The Great Mortality  author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia  across Europe  and into England  killing 75 million peopleone third of the known populationbefore it vanished.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44983811932213,"sku":"ByrdShop_0060006927","price":27.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780060006921.jpg?v=1770810694","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-great-mortality-an-intimate-history-of-the-black-death-the-most-devastating-plague-of-all-time","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}