Getting Up-Close and Personal with the Black Death - Page 2

Kelly also uses occasional references to elements of everyday modern life to help the reader comprehend 14th Century life. Take this description, for example: "Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon, and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road, and you have Cheapside, the busiest, bawdiest, loudest patch of humanity in medieval England." With methods like these, The Great Mortality tells the story by taking us into the day-to-day life of the cities and people affected.

There are other good histories of the Black Death and its impact out there. Works by Norman Cantor and Philip Ziegler come to mind. Kelly's book, though, ranks near the top. As the subtitle implies, it is more personal than the earlier works in both pace and perspective, moving beyond the numbers, horrible as they are, to real people and their lives.

In an age of man-made weapons of mass destruction, this could be viewed as a cautionary tale. I prefer to think of it simply as history as it should be written.

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

Visit Tim Gebhart's author page — Tim Gebhart's Blog