The influence that disease has had on history has often been hidden behind the more ''glorious'' exploits of individuals and monarchs. In Armies of Pestilence R.S. Bray offers a fresh contribution to the impact that illnesses have had on world history. The periods discussed span from the Biblical accounts of epidemics, through the Justinian plague (what was that deadly disease that has kept scientists in contention right through to the present day?), to the miscalculated 1976 influenza epidemic from which the American government took a long time to recover. Dr. Bray covers the Plague (the scourge of medieval Europe), malaria, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus and cholera. The author offers a comprehensive evaluation of many other works, both scientific and historical, which provide a vast basis for research on this subject. His vigorous style and timely injections of humour make this an absorbing and accessible book.


R.S. Bray was a Fellow of the Institute of Biology, an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Protozoologists and the British Society of Parasitology, and former Vice-President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.