The Black Death Summary

In Sean Martin, “The Black Death” is a book that goes into the history of the plague that affected Europe. The author provides in-depth details of exactly what happened at the start of the black plague which was in 1347. That was carried by merchants through trade routes on the silk road. He also talks about the origins and where it originally came from with the help of sources that was documented at the time. The author talks about the first pandemic known as the “Plague of Justinian” and says that the “Black Death” was the second pandemic of plague. He goes into the places that were affected by these outbreaks of sickness. This book gets straight to the point with all of its sections making it a comprehensible book. The author's main objective …show more content…
Sean Martin states “Although Al-Maqrizi’s chronicle was not contemporaneous, Chinese records from the period provides information that may corroborate his thesis that the plague was raging in Mongolia in the early 1330s” (Martin 14). Sean Martins focus was on the history of the European plague, but he did provide historical information on various regions of the world. Which is helpful because it links the black plague with many other plagues throughout these regions. There is a common misconception that the black plague is the only pandemic outbreak that has occurred around the 14th century. Sean Martin even explores possible beginnings of the disease like the spread of plagues through trade routes and the discovery of the plagues' pathogen. He provides his readers with information about the first possible point of origin somewhere around Asia, how it may have been spread, death counts, how the people changed when the outbreak happened and …show more content…
Pre-Black Death religion was widespread it played an important role in people's lives from what he wrote to those who believed in god thought the plague was god’s punishment. However, as he writes about religion and provides examples of other plagues it seems to take over his book. An example of this is when he brings up a plague that happened in the Old Testament. He states “Exodus recounts, in chapter 7, how the lord, displeased with the pharaoh's detention of the Israelites in Egypt, sent plagues to the land as punishment. This can be seen as a hypostatization because the author is using the bible as a way to show logic. The “lords” punishments, in this case, are a set of “plagues” which have not been proven to have happened. He also does this when he talks about the ark of the covenant and how they were punished by the “lords displeasure” by a plague that was brought with tumors