Pale rider

In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney recounts the story of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which infected a third of the world's population and caused between 50 and 100 million deaths.

The book explores how the virus traveled globally, exposing human vulnerability and driving innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.

It also examines the pandemic's significant social and political impacts, including its role in pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid, and Switzerland to the brink of civil war.

Spinney draws on research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology, and economics to masterfully recount this little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity.