A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN SIX PLAGUES
One Signal/Simon & Schuster | March 2025
A History of the World in Six Plagues examines confinement's role in fostering and hindering epidemics. The manuscript traces the long history of viral outbreaks under conditions of social confinement—the plantation system, colonial camps, imprisonment, quarantine, the factory—revealing how these enclosed spaces to fuel epidemics. It is about the complicated histories of movement and stagnation and the unceasing losses accompanying mass death. The text is a narrative-driven book that breaks the veil of tragedy by examining how confined and infected people survive. A History of the World in Six Plagues is a book about the time we live in, where our advancements in medicine do not make us immune from emerging diseases.
