Product Description

Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren -- the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the final, awful end by respiratory failure -- are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was, and how it made history, remain shrouded in a haze of myths.

Norman Cantor, the premier historian of the Middle Ages, draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and groundbreaking historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death afresh, as a gripping, intimate narrative.

In the Wake of the Plague presents a microcosmic view of the Plague in England (and on the continent), telling the stories of the men and women of the fourteenth century, from peasant to priest, and from merchant to king. Cantor introduces a fascinating cast of characters. We meet, among others, fifteen-year-old Princess Joan of England, on her way to Spain to marry a Castilian prince; Thomas of Birmingham, abbot of Halesowen, responsible for his abbey as a CEO is for his business in a desperate time; and the once-prominent landowner John le Strange, who sees the Black Death tear away his family's lands and then its very name as it washes, unchecked, over Europe in wave after wave.

Cantor argues that despite the devastation that made the Plague so terrifying, the disease that killed more than 40 percent of Europe's population had some beneficial results. The often literal demise of the old order meant that new, more scientific thinking increasingly prevailed where church dogma had once reigned supreme. In effect, the Black Death heralded an intellectual revolution. There was also an explosion of art: tapestries became popular as window protection against the supposedly airborne virus, and a great number of painters responded to the Plague. Finally, the Black Death marked an economic sea change: the onset of what Cantor refers to as turbocapitalism; the peasants who survived the Plague thrived, creating Europe's first class of independent farmers.

Here are those stories and others, in a tale of triumph coming out of the darkest horror, wrapped up in a scientific mystery that persists, in part, to this day. Cantor's portrait of the Black Death's world is pro-vocative and captivating. Not since Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror have medieval men and women been brought so vividly to life. The greatest popularizer of the Middle Ages has written the period's most fascinating narrative.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1161456 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 245 pages

From Amazon.com
One-third of Western Europe's population died between 1348 and 1350, victims of the Black Death. Noted medievalist Norman Cantor tells the story of the pandemic and its widespread effects in In the Wake of the Plague.

After giving an overview, Cantor describes various theories about the medical crisis, from contemporary fears of a Jewish conspiracy to poison the water (and the resulting atrocities against European Jews) to a growing belief among modern historians that both bubonic plague and anthrax caused the spiraling death rates. Cantor also details ways in which the Black Death changed history, at both the personal level (family lines dying out) and the political (the Plantagenet kings may well have been able to hold onto France had their resources not been so diminished).

Cantor veers from topic to topic, from dynastic worries to the Dance of Death, and from peasants' rights to Perpendicular Gothic. This makes for amusing reading, though those seeking an orderly narrative may be frustrated. He also seems overly concerned with rumors of homosexual behavior, and his attempt to link the savage method of Edward II's murder to a cooling in global weather is a bit farfetched.

Cantor wears his considerable scholarship lightly, but includes a very useful critical biography for further reading. While not an entry-level text on the Black Death, In the Wake of the Plague will interest readers looking for a broader interpretation of its consequences. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly
The author, currently an emeritus professor at New York University, has had a distinguished career as a medieval historian, and his textbook The Civilization of the Middle Ages has been popular with many students over many years. Here Cantor produces a popular account of one of the greatest disasters ever to befall the people of Europe. The great plague that struck in the mid-14th century, and returned intermittently for centuries thereafter, had a mortality rate of perhaps 40% and consequently ushered in several profound changes. Beginning with a biomedical survey of the disease, the author points out many problems with current beliefs about its origins, transmission and nature. He suggests that in many instances the likely cause of death was anthrax, which has the same initial symptoms as plague. The plague fell on all classes and regions, and the author uses the stories of several individuals to personalize the devastation and its consequences. He makes a particularly compelling case that the death of Thomas Bradwardine, newly consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, had deep repercussions for the development of both science and religion. In some instances the book raises points that deserve fuller treatment, such as the possible role of serpents in the transmission of plague, but the final chapter neatly summarizes the consequences of this calamity. This book will be welcomed by anyone who wants a good introduction to the topic.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Cantor (emeritus, New York Univ.; The American Century, LJ 8/99) here looks at the effects of the Black Death on 14th-century Europe. The author believes that our future may be threatened by epidemics as devastating as the Black Death, whether brought on by natural causes or by bio-terrorism. Surveying recent biomedical research on the Black Death, he believes that two diseases were at work in the 14th century the Bubonic Plague, long identified as the major component of the Black Death, and a variety of anti-humanoid Anthrax. The result was devastating, with up to 40 percent of Europe's population dying from the diseases. Among the historical consequences, Cantor believes, was the end of the Plantagenets' Anglo-French Empire, for the Black Death decimated the peasant population that supplied the English kings with the skilled infantry archers that were the backbone of England's military might. This work should appeal to both specialists and general readers and is highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Robert J. Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Mixed Feelings about this Book
Norman Cantor's "In the Wake of the Plague" is rather an interesting read yet my feelings on this were mixed. With only ten chapters and roughly 220 pages, this book can be a useful work for the study of the Black Death due to its use of secondary researches and bibliography. However, it seems to be a bit unreadable and rather a subjective written.

While I was intrigued with his use of secondary sources and his discussion in "Knowing About the Black Death" section, I was rather put off or confused by his writing style throughout this book, and I was not quite sure what conclusion(s) he was relating to the readers.

While the author made some interesting points throughout the book, I was getting the impression that he wrote this book in a hurry.

Give me Snoopy any day
It was a dark and stormy night in the groves of Academe as Norman F. Cantor wrote, sipping a glass of claret (clear wine from Gascony), although not of the same vintage as that with which Edward III gorged himself as he was sending off his daughter Griselda to marry the syphilitic king of Castille, who was trying to understand why, all of a sudden, Granada was in the southwest corner of the Iberian peninsula.....Oh help!

a waste of time and misleading, read Tuchman instead
As a European history teacher, I hoped that I would get some tidbits from this for my class and for my own edification. I found neither. I have trouble imagining that this writer is actually a Medieval scholar. I suspect he is suffering from Alzheimers. He has the reverence for facts of Ronald Reagan, among other dopey innacuracies: the end of the Roman empire is put two centuries late, the Romans he says had been fending off the Arabs for millennia (even though the Roman empire existed for less than one millennia), the plague came from Africa-it clearly came from East Asia. Further the writing style is terrible. It is nearly unreadable. There is constant repetition, bizarre and awkward phrases "biomedical disaster" and no structure. Each chapter wanders around without a thesis, repeats earlier chapters and makes pathetic attempts to tie in to recent events. There are also a huge number of ridiculous theories (plague was from outer space, without the plague the scientific revolution would have come centuries earlier, etc.) which Cantor badly explains and then doesn't critically evaluate. They might be true, he muses, without looking at any facts.
I suspect that this was cobbled together from hastily written lecture notes for an introductory history class for brain dead undergraduates without the editing that it desperately needs. Don't waste your time on this, there is almost nothing to learn here.
Instead read Barbara Tuchman's long, but fully researched and wonderfully detailed book: A Distant Mirror about the 14th century. It has a very powerful chapter on the plague and gives a real sense of Medieval life.