The Recent Wave of 'Spanish' Flu Historiography

Abstract

This article surveys the surge ofwriting over the last 15 years by social andmedical scientists on the topic of the devastating ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, which it labels a ‘second wave’of this pandemic’s historiography. It views thiswork in threeways: by looking, first, atwhatwider, contextual factors triggered this explosion of writing; secondly, at the authors of these works and their specificmotivations for takingupthesubject;andthirdly, athowtheir labourshavealtered, refinedor reshaped our understanding of this great catastrophe’s origin, its direct and indirect toll, its differential incidence by class and gender, its tripartite connections to the First World War, its portrayal in the contemporarypress, and its impactonmedical science. Finally, thearticle urges that anumberof new lenses should be brought to bear on the pandemic as its centenary approaches, to provide a 360 degree perspective on it. Viewing it thus, it suggests, could well yield a third wave of pandemic historiography.