A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920

Abstract

The 1918–1919 influenza pandemic was the greatest biological disaster in American history and altered the course of world history in numerous ways. Despite these realities this pandemic has widely been ignored by general American history texts. Pettit's and Bailie's significant new work should end this historical oversight. Not only does this book present the most comprehensive technical history of this pandemic, it also details influenza's impact on World War I, the 1919 Paris peace conference, and post-World War I American life. The authors bring diverse scholarly strengths to this project. The text is based largely on Pettit's doctoral dissertation on the history of the pandemic, 1918–1920. Bailie, a Ph.D. in biochemistry, provides the basic science to explain the scientific portion of the influenza mystery. Throughout the text the authors use an impressive amount of new primary materials, including the papers and diaries of key medical, military, and governmental figures who led the efforts against this pandemic. The authors also rely on newspaper accounts from these years from such diverse newspapers as the New York Times and the North China Herald, to demonstrate the major day-to-day impact of influenza on the American public.