Pale Rider cover art

Pale Rider

The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Pale Rider

By: Laura Spinney
Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I.

In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test.

Laura Spinney demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant – if not more so – as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.

©2017 Laura Spinney (P)2020 Penguin Audio 20th Century Biological Sciences Contagious Diseases History & Commentary Medicine & Health Care Industry Modern Physical Illness & Disease Science World Africa Latin American Imperialism Medicine War Middle Ages Health

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Fever cover art
Plagues upon the Earth cover art
The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl cover art
The Hidden Life of Trees cover art
Spike cover art
Virtual Mode cover art
Pale Rider cover art
Late Victorian Holocausts cover art
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich cover art
The Next Pandemic cover art
Guns, Germs and Steel cover art
Pandora’s Lab cover art
Viruses, Plagues, and History cover art
The History of the Ancient World cover art
Asleep cover art
Epidemics cover art

Critic reviews

"Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story...Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past." (Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant
Excellent narration of a very interesting, well written and informative book.
At this present time, going through a pandemic, we can see how science has managed to engineer the basis for the vaccines needed.

Very interesting.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So many parallels between Spanish Flu and current global pandemic a hundred years later. Fascinating and terrifying read. Superbly researched.

Superb

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A hugely impressive and compelling book. Written before the current Coronavirus pandemic, some of the writing is incredibly prescient and will leave you speechless. Excellent narration too by Peter Hodgson. Highly recommended.

Compelling…..

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating . Spinney builds up her narrative in layers, combining historical, scientific and cultural perspectives to present a careful and thought provoking account of an event that has many resonances for us in 2020. History doesn’t entirely repeat itself: we have made considerable medical advances, but fake news, quack cures and blind prejudice were there in 1918 ... & sadly still around now. The case studies and human stories are particularly poignant. I found the last quarter a little tendentious in places but this is a very worthwhile read/listen. Narrator has pleasant voice, but some odd phrasing at times.

Added impact given current context (read in 2020)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is so informative of the catastophic Spanish flu which has so much relevance to the world we live in today. Thoroughly recommend it.

Terrific book very interesting.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews