The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague | 
 enlarge | Author: Johannes Nohl
Creator: C. H. Clarke
Publisher: Westholme Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.25
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 569581
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 296
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 1594160295
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.5732094
EAN: 9781594160295
ASIN: 1594160295
Publication Date: May 31, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Never read
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Book Description
Hailed by the New York Times as "unusually interesting both as history and sociological study," The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague traces the ebb and flow of European pandemics between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries through translations of contemporary accounts, including those of Petrarch, DeFoe, Paracelsus, and Machiavelli. Nohl's volume is unique for its geographical and historical scope as well as its combination of detailed accounts and overarching contemporary views of the plague, a disease that claimed nearly forty million people during the fourteenth century alone. With current concerns about pandemics, The Black Death provides lessons on how humans reacted to and survived catastrophic loss of life to disease.
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| Customer Reviews:
 the hardest book to read May 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
While the book is informative there is absolutely no order to any of it. It makes for difficult reading at best. Try instead The Black Death by Gottried...a truly well written and highly informative book. Also flows in great order!!
Critical review of The Black Death - A chronicle of the Plague April 27, 2008
Analysis:
The book is divided in 12 chapters. None of which are set to any chronological or geographical order. The lack of order, plus the authors "skipping around" made the book an unpleasant experience to read.
A lot of the material was taken from letters written during the different plagues, in different parts of Europe and at different times. While this gives the reader a good source of first hand information, the letters are not organized in any certain order.
One paragraph might be discussing the 1665 - 1666 plague that hit London and the very next paragraph be about a plague in Germany in the year 1348.
There were a lot of changes that happened between the 1340s and the 1660s. It was difficult to keep the correct time frame, ideology, theology and technology separated.
Another difficulty during the reading was the misspelling of common words. As mentioned before, a lot of the information in the book are direct quotes taken from letters written during the different plagues and at different times. Between the 1340s and the 1600s a lot of changes went on in the education system. So one letter from the 1350s might have a lot misspelled words, the next letter from the 1600s was written better, then the author skips back to the 1400s. The writing style was under constant change, making reading uncomfortable.
Information contained in the book:
A lot of the content contained in the book came from letters written during the plagues and at different times. There were several truths that were conveyed over hundreds of years.
Whether the outbreak of the plague was in 1350, 1450, 1550, or 1650, the effects on society were the same. Every time period conveyed tales of love, passion, death, religion and destruction.
The effects of the plague were so tragic, so devastating it is impossible to discuss them in their entirety here.
Anyone looking for realistic, honest and accurate information on the plague should find this book to be a good asset.
However, the author does not cite a lot of his sources. Example - on page 87 the "Plague Remedies" chapter begins. If the reader wanted to verify some of the remedies mentioned in the book, the sources are not noted. So independent verification of the information contained here in would be difficult.
Out of 5 stars the book gets a 2.5 - 3.
 Brings Powerful Lessons on How People Reacted to The Black Death March 9, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Johannes Nohl wrote and compiled an interesting work entitled "The Black Death: A Chronicle of the Plague," which revealed eye-opening contemporary accounts of the Black Death during the Medieval Europe. With roughly 270 pages and twelve chapters, this book gives one a new and shocking perspective on the history of the Black Death: the reactions of the people to the plague.
The Black Death was one of the worst disasters in the history of humankind to which it killed off the third of the whole population, beginning in the year of 1348. And, this book brought forth the personal experiences and official documents to give the reader to deeply understand what the people of that ill-fated era were experiencing. Nohl's work is rather unique because of its degree to the aspects of historical, sociological, and geographical nature.
The book begins with the aspects of the plague, including the victims and the deaths, to the causes of the plague, to which some believed it to be of a divine origin or other forms of superstitions or beforehanded seen "fateful comets." Then, the author goes on to bring to light of the medical profession and its role during the plague, the detailed accounts that might prevent the plague, the precaution measurements by the Church and the governments, the role of the Church, and moral collapse and other elements. And, the rest of the book deals with the issue of persecutions of the Jews and their role, the issue of sexuality and the appearance of respectability where it "had disappeared after the terror of the Black Death had swept away not only all law courts and police, but had destroyed the last conventions of decency" (p. 207). Finally, the discussion of the role of flagellants and the personal accounts surrounding them during the plague, and then the author finally wrapped up the book with a brief aftermath of the plague where the "joy" returned.
Personally, I found this book to be quite an eye-opening and shocking to which I felt it was very important for one to read the contemporary detailed accounts, both officially and intimately, from the people who lived through or died in the Black Death. When one read the history about the Black Death, a very little can be understood about the magnitude or the impact of the plague on the people until one personally experience the detailed graphic accounts from the people who lived and died during the deadly plague.
I believe this book to be one of the most important works for the study of the Black Death because it surly brings the powerful lessons on how medieval people reacted to the plague and how the few survived such a worst disaster.
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