The Black Death by Philip Ziegler, UK, 1997
This is an extremely informative text book on the plague that swept through Europe and England in the late 1340s. Ziegler looks at the causes and then traces the spread of the plague across Europe and into England. He examines not only the immediate effects of such a holocaust but also the far-reaching effects on society, politics, religion and education.Descriptions of plague-infested villages and the horror inflicted upon the inhabitants (most of them sourced from contemporary writings) are interspersed with opinions and contra-opinions, observations, historical facts and statistics. While The Black Deathis not a novel, it cannot fail to captivate and educate. For anyone wanting to know more about this period of mediaeval history, this is a definite mustread.
