Get our latest staff recommendations, award news and digital catalog links right to your inbox.
A History of the World in Six Plagues
How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19
Table of Contents
About The Book
An “incredible, humane, insightful” (Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize winner) account of humankind’s battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines—in the vein of Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body.
With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues is “a breathtaking journey through the intertwined histories of contagions and systemic inequities that have shaped our history” (Uché Blackstock, New York Times bestselling author).
Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Also a rising call to action, this “tour de force…will change the way people think about public health and histories of medicine” (Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil, author of Mobilizing Black Germany).
With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues is “a breathtaking journey through the intertwined histories of contagions and systemic inequities that have shaped our history” (Uché Blackstock, New York Times bestselling author).
Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Also a rising call to action, this “tour de force…will change the way people think about public health and histories of medicine” (Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil, author of Mobilizing Black Germany).
Product Details
- Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers (March 10, 2026)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982197841
Browse Related Books
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
-
Book Cover Image (jpg): A History of the World in Six Plagues
Trade Paperback 9781982197841
-
Author Photo (jpg): Edna Bonhomme Photograph by Carleen Coulter(0.1 MB)
Any use of an author photo must include its respective photo credit
