If you’re missing the crush and smell of crowds, The Shovel has provided a set of crowd pictures, while Deutsche Welle has pictures of how people are coping around the world.
What we can learn from epidemics
On Last Saturday’s Saturday Extra Geraldine Doogue interviewed historian Richard Evans of Cambridge University – What we can learn from epidemics. He takes us back in history from the Black Death through to more recent scourges, such as tuberculosis. There are general patterns of political behaviour – initial hush-ups, suppression of information, and a presentation of choices between health and the economy. There are almost always significant economic consequences (for example the Black Death, through reducing the supply of labour, struck a blow at feudalism), and people often throw out their governments when the plague is over (we can live in hope). His lectures The great plagues: Epidemics in history from the middle ages to the present day are on line. (20 minutes).
He and Geraldine listed a number of books that may provide reading for those in house arrest:
- Albert Camus The Plague
- Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron
- Alessandro Manzoni The Betrothed
- Thomas Mann Death in Venice
- Philip Roth Nemesis
- Joan London The Golden Age
