In this excellent book, a husband and wife, a historian and a biologist, have brilliantly captured the human, medical, and political dimensions of the Great Plague in London and the surrounding areas which killed millions in the 14th century.

Th authors have succeeded in combining meticulous historical research and scholarship with an account of the plague. Using the letters, diaries, and manuscripts of contemporary England, they convey the all-consuming fear of the plague, showing how individuals and families responded to the dilemma of staying back or fleeing the city.

Flight, rather than medical measures, had been the preferred option ever since the Middle Ages. But flight into the countryside with no money often meant being harried away from farms and villages by country people who were anxious to avoid contagion, so the runaways faced starvation and death. Many doctors fled the plague, often justifying their actions by pointing out that they were following their clients.

The extremely readable and lively account helps us imagine what can happen if a similar contagion reappears in future.