A chilling account of more than half a century of nuclear catastrophes, by the author of the “definitive” (Economist) Cold War history, Nuclear Folly. Almost 145,000 Americans fled their homes in and around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in late March 1979, hoping to save themselves from an invisible enemy: radiation. The reactor

Winter brings snow, ice, and freezing temperatures, but these climatic conditions are also the harbingers of another time of year: flu season. We all know the signs—chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, coughing—and hope that this common illness will make us sick for only a few days. But though the

Major influenza pandemics pose a constant threat. As evidenced by recent H5N1 avian flu and novel H1N1, influenza outbreaks can come in close succession, yet differ in their transmission and impact. With accelerated levels of commercial and population mobility, new forms of flu virus can also spread across the globe

The first comprehensive global history of the discipline of paleopathology

A look at the 1918 influenza pandemic from its outbreak to its effects on the global population and its legacy. On the second Monday of March, 1918, the world changed forever. What seemed like a harmless cold morphed into a global pandemic that would wipe out as many as a