Book: THE GREAT SHADOW: A HISTORY OF HOW SICKNESS SHAPES WHAT WE DO, THINK, BELIEVE, AND BUY
Author: Susan Wise Bauer
Published by: St. Martin’s Press
Price: $30
We often fail to recognise how much of our daily choices are driven by the fear of illness. In an era of recurring viruses and the return of many old ailments, we have incorporated disease and preventative gear into our daily lives to such an extent that every other person has a bottle of sanitiser lying in his or her bag. Susan Wise Bauer’s book, however, argues that such behaviour is not a new phenomenon but something that we have inherited from our predecessors.
The book can be read as a historical survey that examines the deep connection between physical illness and the evolution of human culture over centuries. The author uses archival research and personal accounts to show how our ancestors reacted to contagions with many of the same fears we experience today, and how our current anxieties are part of a long-standing pattern where biology leaves its imprint on culture. Bauer’s narration, spanning from a person a few thousand years ago to one from five years ago, is compelling, with the impending fear of sickness as the common thread binding them. By weaving together stories of ancestors with our modern anxieties, she creates a vivid, almost novel-like, continuity.
Bauer’s central concept depends on where she positions sickness within the human experience. While we often view illness as a distant or temporary interruption, she argues that it is actually the "most intimate expression of our vexed relationship with reality”. We spend our lives battling external obstacles like poverty or injustice, yet the most profound interruption occurs when the body itself breaks down. For Bauer, sickness is thus a "great mirror" that forces us to confront why calamity descends without warning. Placing illness at the heart of our story, she illuminates how we explain, avoid, and fight back against disease define our very humanity.
The Great Shadow also highlights a pivotal shift in human history wherein medicine began to diverge from mystery, moving from "magic" to "technique”. As priests recorded patterns of treatment over centuries, they realised that certain ailments responded consistently to physical remedies rather than divine intervention. This data-driven approach carved out a space for the earliest kind of secularism in the form of medicine, creating a gap between the natural and the supernatural. By treating the body as a "microcosm" of the universe — governed by balance rather than the whims of gods — medicine became the primary lens through which humans first learnt to judge and manipulate the world on their own terms.
Sickness also forces us to create stories — whether religious, magical, or secular — to explain why "calamity descend without warning”, effectively driving the development of human philosophy and literature. While history is often chronicled through wars and inventions, Bauer argues that the constant presence of sickness, not injury, has shaped how we think about ourselves and our world. Even today, as we face stubborn viruses that have returned with a makeover, we see that while the names of the pathogens change, the presence of disease and our fear of them remain permanent.