Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire

· Sold by Penguin
2.7
6 reviews
Ebook
384
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

From the acclaimed author of Miracle Cure and The Third Horseman, the epic story of the collision between one of nature's smallest organisms and history's mightiest empire

During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian reigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa. It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542 AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classical world of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modern Europe was born.

At its height, five thousand people died every day in Constantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was the first pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indelible mark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million people were dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology, jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian's Flea is a unique and sweeping account of the little known event that changed the course of a continent.

Ratings and reviews

2.7
6 reviews
Joey Cooper
February 1, 2024
Barely deals with the plague. Justinian, the Emperor , getting the plague received nothing more than a paragraph almost 200 pages in. It's more a history of the decline of the eastern Roman Empire.
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Jake Kelley
March 11, 2016
A great read
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About the author

William Rosen, author of Miracle CureThe Third HorsemanJustinian’s Flea, and The Most Powerful Idea in the World, was an editor and a publisher at Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and the Free Press for nearly twenty-five years.

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