I never have any luck when finding books about the Black Death. Of the handful I’ve read, the only interesting accounts I’ve come across have been chapters in history books covering a broad spectrum of issues related to the 14th and 15th centuries. Norman F. Cantor’s In the Wake Of the Plague is no exception. It’s difficult to even tell why Cantor wrote this dreadful book. Maybe he wanted to finish one last project before he died. Maybe he was senile. I don’t know. But I do know this book is a waste of time.
Cantor opens up with a chapter on what the Black Death actually was. His contention is that it was not entirely the bubonic plague, but a mixture of that with anthrax that had spread from diseased cattle to the human population. He doesn’t appear to know much about science, but fair enough, I’ll stay with him for the time being. But then he launches into a long, unnecessary sidetrack about plagues, pandemics, and other diseases that adds nothing of value to his discussion.
From there, he goes into an analysis of medieval society that starts with Princess Joan’s journey to Spain to get married. There is a lot about the Hundred Years War, peasant uprisings, the structure of the nobility, the relation between church and state, the disputes over the papacy, and a detailed account of Bradwardine’s progressive theology and his conflict with the more conservative and less-scientific philosophers of the day. At some points, this all reads more like a general history of the era and less like a treatise about the Black Death. In fact, the Black Death only has a tenuous connection to what Cantor actually writes about. He details the lives of people who died of the plague, but doesn’t say much about the plague itself as if it is little more than an afterthought or a way of making connections between people that aren’t really connected. Then there is some other stuff about the scapegoating of Jews and witches. It’s a mishmash of information loosely tied together by the theme of the plague, but none of it ever congeals into any kind of an intriguing narrative. It all seems quite boring and pointless.
The book ends with a couple of goofy chapters considering that the Black Death might have come from people eating snakes, something from outer space, or germs that spread from eastern Africa. There are then more sidetracks about diseases in ancient Greece and Rome, and AIDS in the 20th century. None of this is explained with sufficient detail to be convincing or even interesting. In the afterword, Cantor tries to explain how the Black Death affected society, but all he comes up with is some abstract social theorizing and commentaries on art history; none of these claims can be supported with any kind of tangible or relevant data.
The only good thing I can say about In the Wake Of the Plague is that it has a cool picture on the cover. That and the fact that it is so short and simple that it can be read in one day. In other words, it won’t waste too much of your time if you actually bother to pick it up. It is best to pass this one by.
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