Plagues: Their Origins, History and Future - Hardcover

Using vivid descriptions and a wealth of personal stories and anecdotes, this work tells of the origins, biology and destiny of such scourges of the human race as bubonic plague, malaria, typhoid, cholera, syphilis and AIDS. In this book for the general reader, Wills demonstrates the effect of these diseases on the entire evolutionary process - how they have done more to shape the teeming diversity of life on our planet than we realise. It draws on graphic evidence from places as remote from each other as the slums of Calcutta and the Peruvian rain forests to show how the evolution of plagues has also had an important role in shaping our own species, man. However, plagues are unusual events, and the cells which cause them have often gone out on an evolutionary limb, risking their own destruction. Wills's scientific insights demonstrate repeatedly how plague organisms can only overwhelm our defences by reducing their own, rendering themselves more vulnerable in the process.

'Plagues' goes beyond the terrifying news stories about outbreaks of disease in Rwanda, India and Kenya to ask the simple, fascinating question: why are there plagues? This important, accessible book provides new perspectives on the problem of human disease – a problem as old as the human race itself.

“Disease is an illuminating mirror to hold up against mankind, and Wills's discovery of a variegated genetic beauty underlying it all is a great feat of empathy.”
ROGER CLARKE, 'Independent'

“Charles Darwin had that rare knack of combining personal reminiscence with scientific instruction; the late Lewis Thomas was a genius at doing that for clinical medicine; and Wills is their worthy successor... Combining history, travelogue, scientific exposition, autobiography and commentary on world affairs and eco-politics, Wills provides a sure guide to the medical problems and promises of the end of the second millennium, and enlarges our grasp of the evolution of disease.”
ROY PORTER, 'The Times'

“The ambiguous role of bacteria in human affairs is the essential theme of 'Plagues'. At one level, it is quite a straightforward retelling of the history of the great plagues of the past – cholera, typhus, syphilis and the Black Death. But Christopher Wills is also very good on the details of the mechanisms by which bacteria caused these plagues, offering numerous insights into their phenomenal ability to alter their environment to their own advantage.”
JAMES LE FANU, 'Literary Review'

“Illuminating and compulsive”
MICHAEL WHITE, 'Mail on Sunday'