It also created the true 'lost generation.' Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology and economics, Pale Rider masterfully recounts the little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity'-Amazon. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted-and often permanently altered-global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. Join 900,000+ Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on. In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus traveled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. Laura Spinney is the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, published by Penguin Books. She is now working as a drama critic for a newspaper in Denver, where she falls in love with a soldier, Adam, during the influenza epidemic of 1918. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. Miranda returns in the title story, Pale Horse, Pale Rider. Although the flu pandemic of 1918 killed far more people than the war it is only recently that it has been talked about, written about and analyzed. It infected a third of the people on Earth-from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson. Pale Rider is a book that covers a topic that has emerged from our collective memory of WWI over the last 20 years or so.

'The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I.
In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankinds vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test.

Pale Rider by Laura Spinney