The Great Mortality

An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

By: John Kelly

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

“Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us.” — Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history—even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern.

The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics can’t convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning, where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence.

In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people—one third of the known population—before it vanished.

The Great Mortality

The facts fascinated me most. The long story was interesting and it gave me an excellent background of source documents and personal accounts. Narrator was pleasant as one could be on such an event.

Interesting, with a Few Flaws

The Great Mortality is a quick, engaging read; a narrative of the plague that struck Europe in the 1340s. It provides a story-teller's version of the origins of the disease in rodent populations in Central Asia, its trajectory to Europe, from the Black Sea into Italy, and then provides narrative snapshots of several regions - Italy, France, England - explaining how the plague impacted each society in turn. Its style is docudrama, with stories of people from nobility to commoner weaved together to build an overall picture of the devastating effects of the plague on people, society and history.
The book is interesting and informative and the narration is excellent, however it does have some defects. The first and worst is the repeated references to Norman Cantor's book "in the Wake of the Plague". Surely Kelly, who has done tremendous research, knows that Cantor's book is completely discredited and largely falsified. It undermines Kelly's own work that rather than expose Cantor's flaws, he cites them as though they are trustworthy. A minor quibble is Kelly's calling it the "Norwegian rat", when it is the Norway rat. The other regrettable aspect is the tone -- Kelly makes a meal out of personifying the plague, telling us that it is sometimes exhausted or eager or camps out or slithers into a new town. It's a useful effect when used once or twice, but the author's insistence on this effect becomes increasingly cringy as the book goes on. Perhaps a good editor can clean that up in future editions.
Overall this is a good book, quick and informative and mercifully free of self-referential academic fetishes. Worth a listen.

Jackpot!

New favorite! I’ve been interested in this subject since I was a child and I’m in love with this book. Educational and entertaining. Fascinating, addictive, and strangely uplifting, it’s a “no holds barred” dive into one of the most significant times in our human history. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Black Death! Thank you.

History is fascinating

The in-depth scholarship that this book required continues to amaze me. I cannot imagine the level of work involved in finding so much information hidden in unexpected sources! We’re talking about the so called Dark Ages, over 600 yrs ago, when few knew how to read or write much less keep records.
The author makes it readable and entertaining in spite of the morbid topic. And he puts things in context. This book really is a worthy companion to Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror.

Scattered but do read to the end

The story jumps at times with little regard for timeline. It was hard to follow through those parts. Quite often there are wide brush strokes when it comes to geography and history. An example of it is citing Prussia in 1300’s. So it is best to stay engaged and not wander off while listening because or one can feel lost. That is also a bow to authors ability to stick to the main path he leads the listener- reader on.