Caius
Posts: 175
Joined: 2/2/2005
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Sheesh , what an awful lot judgment and animosity heaped upon the OP for making a simple request. I happen to agree this rather a bizarre place to be looking for that information, but then I often think the same regarding the unending stream of posts on this site pertaining to politics, news, half-baked philosophy, recipes, lawl cats and just about every other random, often inane subject having nothing to do with BDSM that people make it their daily business to debate here. The fact of the matter is that she asked for help, she didn't demand it, nor did she in any way disparage anyone who chose not to provide it. So if you're not interested, why not just move on to the next thread? Is it really worth anybody's time to chastise her simply because the opportunity presented itself? Talk about catty.
However, that being said, Running, I do have some questions before I'd venture to suggest any particular materials. First, are you looking for information regarding the disease itself and it's pathology or are you looking for information concerning the historical context in which the outbreaks occurred? I assume it's probably the latter, but one can never be sure. How much time do you have remaining to finish this paper, enough to have your school's library request the materials from another, if necessary? Do you know anything of which online journal databases your university subscribes to on behalf of its students? The problem, you see, is not so much suggesting worthwhile materials, but finding those that can be of use to you in time. In general, just a little more info on the approach of the essay (or at least what course the paper is being written for) would be helpful.
If you're specifically looking for something to set your paper apart from the generic 'Black Death' papers (as I'm assuming for your age that this is an introductory course), then there are ample histories written about the role plague played immediately following contact between Europeans and the native peoples of the Americas. Remember, the vast majority of native peoples died out before they ever had a chance to meet a European, whose diseases ran forward well in advance of their physical presence. In a very real sense, the diseases of the Europeans pre-conqured two continents for them. If you like this bent, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel is a good place to start. The primary concept in that book is that course of history has been shaped by the environment in which various people found themselves. In this case, Europeans had a long history of living alongside livestock, which in turn gave them diseases and thus immunities. Native Americans, by comparison, having virtually no domesticated species, had limited immunities and no real devastating diseases to counter-infect the Europeans with. Just food for thought. And best of all, you can find a half dozen copies of that book in just about every college/university in the nation, it's become such a fad to teach in the last decade.
Failing that, you might try the titles bellow, though which of them you might find and whether they would be better suited to your needs than any other book on the subject you might find at your library, I don't know. Note that most of the above I have not read myself and I can't account for the quality or relevance; they are simply references in other materials I have at hand that are peripherally connected to the subject at hand.
Hans Zissner, Rats, Lice, and History
Geddes Smith, A Plague on Us
William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples
Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological Consequences of 1492 and Ecological Imperialism
McFarlane Burnette, A Natural history of Infectious Diseases
Henry Dobyns, Their Numbers Became Thinned
Also, if you choose to go with the more 'classic' plague periods, don't forget that we don't really know for a fact if the first two "plague" pandemics were really bubonic plague entirely or a combination of virulent pathogens running around the Eurasia at the time. Also, if you are looking for contemporaneous accounts, the Plague of Justinian is actually the better of the two to study, despite occurring first, because it happened to be centralized right around Constantinople, one of the most learned cities of its age, whereas the Black Death was considerably more diffuse and occurred in a manner that did not put quite so many historians right on the scene. The Third Plague (which was definitely Bubonic/Septicemic/Pneumonic Plague) is also worth looking at as a stand-out approach as most people seem to forget it's role in history compared to the first two, though it was actually active through most of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth.
Now, these are mostly sources and facts given under the assumption that you are looking for historical information. If you're looking to understand the disease itself and its mechanisms, I can really help you out, since I actually know quite a little bit about its pathology. Let me know. In any account, best of luck.
Edited to add: Bah, seems I should have done my research a little more thoroughly; I see now the OP is already done with her paper. Oh well, I'll leave the content up all the same, I guess.
< Message edited by Caius -- 10/27/2010 8:46:15 PM >
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RE: Bubonic Plague Essay - 
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