Philip Ziegler's The Black Death

Philip Ziegler’s The Black Death was a human disaster of the fourteenth century. Ziegler wrote the book in 1969. He discusses how the black plague traveled and how much destruction it caused. The plague outbreak took place during the 1340’s. It became a pandemic that spread out all over England. He focused mostly on the plague in England throughout the book. He connected how the plague spread from there to other country’s villages. The book was a way for Ziegler to inform people of the mass effects the plague caused and the sadness it brought from the outbreaks.
Ziegler started out talking about the outbreak in England. It became very chaotic there and the disease did not waste any time spreading. It expanded using all of its trade routes. He explained it then traveled to Sicily by ships and from there it broke out all over Italy. Italy took the plague to France in a very short period of time and then carried it east into Germany. He wrote the book intending to hook the audience on the mass destruction from the plague and how people dealt with it. …show more content…
In one of the chapters, Ziegler talks about two fictional villages, but uses the dramatics and details from the actual plague in England. He wanted to let the readers have a sense of what was going on over there and what the people were going through. As they read the chapters, he wanted them to put themselves in a medieval village and know what it would be like to have something so devastating as the plague happen. He went into exact detail of what the plague would do to people. “In men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or under the armpit, some of which grew as large as common apples, others as eggs” (Ziegler 18). He explained the bacteria would stay with a person for days on in and they would keep repeating each symptom. The book allowed me to learn more about the history of the plague. I didn’t realize how many countries it affected. It gave me the background of it and how it was unstoppable. The symptoms from the disease and the pain that led are hard to understand. It’s something that is difficult to relate to since my generation has not come close to anything in that nature. I also didn’t know that the Jews were blamed for the cause of the outbreaks. It was said that they poisoned the wells. “Plague in a Medieval Village” chapter definitely helped me understand the effects a plague brings on a person. I could not imagine something like the plague coming to the United States. I agree with Ziegler on his goals to hook his readers on the powerful effects of the plague. People need to understand more about the biggest catastrophe of the fourteenth century. Zeigler is accurate with the history in his book, but he leaves out a lot of the places the plague traveled to. He focused mainly on the plague in England and went into detail with it in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. He spends a lot of time talking about the statistics and numbers of how many died in England. He doesn’t talk a lot about the other countries the plague obtained to. Only six chapters talk about the