BLACK DEATH

A history of London’s battle with the bubonic plague

Author: Stephen Porter Publisher: Amberley Price: £14.99 Released: Out now

Stephen Porter’s Black Death is subtitled A New History of the Bubonic Plagues of London, and it certainly lives up to its billing. With plague pits still being unearthed in London to this day and the whole world currently navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, this is a timely examination of the capital’s various battles against the bubonic plague.

The book begins with a couple of primers to familiarise readers with the plague and the history of London. From its Roman origins, Porter paints a portrait of a city that grows at an exponential rate and as it does, creates the perfect environment for a plague to flourish. Once the stage is suitably set, he embarks on a narrative history of the disease’s various and ruinous descents on the city and Europe as a whole.

There is no doubt that this is an exhaustively researched work and though there are a lot of statistics for the reader to grapple with, Porter tries to balance these with a look at the devastating impact of plague on wider society and the human stories that emerged. Though this isn’t always successful, what emerges from Black Death is a vivid portrait of a city on the edge of calamity in which its inhabitants were driven to extremes of humanity and inhumanity alike.

Black Death is heavy with statistics and may not appeal to the casual reader, but those with an academic interest in the subject or the history of disease will likely find much to enjoy.