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wise words
Kenneth Davis on Learning From the Last Global Plague by Randy Kambic
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long with annual flu season warnings, there’s more news than usual on the dangers of microbes and transmittable diseases, including recent domestic measles outbreaks and the rise of resistant bacteria from the improper use of antibiotics. In his latest book released earlier this year, More Deadly than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War, Kenneth C. Davis describes the worldwide epidemic that killed millions only a century ago and warns of a potential relapse. Davis is also the author of In the Shadow of Liberty, an American Library Association Notable Book and a finalist for the Youth Adult Library Service Association Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. His New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Don’t Know Much About book series for both adults and children makes many, sometimes esoteric facts and figures on history, The Bible, the universe, geography and other subjects come alive. Davis is a TED-Ed educator whose lectures are globally available online.
What inspired you to tackle this deadly subject?
My editor had the flu and mentioned that 24
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her grandmother died of the Spanish Flu. I said that’s a fascinating subject. She said if you ever want to write about it, I’d love to know, and it was around the time that I was beginning to think about the 100th anniversary of the flu and the end of World War I. These were two extraordinary moments in modern human history that many people don’t understand.
What makes the Spanish Flu epidemic relevant today?
It was the most extraordinary pandemic in modern times, the worst since the Black Plague. So many aspects of the story can teach us lessons, like the role of propaganda that created the circumstances that allowed the flu to flourish, politicians ignoring sound science. In Philadelphia in September of 1918, the health commissioner was warned not to allow a big parade that was meant to sell war bonds. He did, and 200,000 people crowded the streets. Two days later, there was not a hospital bed left in the city. It was that sudden and explosive gathering of mass numbers of people that lit the fuse for a tremendous flu bomb to explode. It’s important to understand the connection between science and history. Often, we treat history as a collec-
photo by Nina Subin
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