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A richly told story of the collision between nature's smallest organism and history's mightiest empireThe Emperor Justinian reunified Rome's fractured empire by defeating the Goths and Vandals who had separated Italy, Spain, and North Africa from imperial rule. In his capital at Constantinople he built the world's most beautiful building, married its most powerful empress, and wrote its most enduring legal code, seemingly restoring Rome's fortunes for the next five hundred years. Then, in the summer of 542, he encountered a flea. The ensuing outbreak of bubonic plague killed five thousand people a day in Constantinople and nearly killed Justinian himself.In Justinian's Flea, William Rosen tells the story of history's first pandemic—a plague seven centuries before the Black Death that killed tens of millions, devastated the empires of Persia and Rome, left a path of victims from Ireland to Iraq, and opened the way for the armies of Islam. Weaving together evolutionary microbiology, economics, military strategy, ecology, and ancient and modern medicine, Rosen offers a sweeping narrative of one of the great hinge moments in history, one that will appeal to readers of John Kelly's The Great Mortality, John Barry's The Great Influenza, and Jared Diamond's Collapse.
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History, NonfictionShowing 5 featured editions. View all 5 editions?
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Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
May 1, 2007, Tantor Media
Audio CD
in English
- Unabridged edition
1400103851 9781400103850
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Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
June 1, 2007, Tantor Media
Audio CD
in English
- Unabridged edition
1400133858 9781400133857
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Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
June 1, 2007, Tantor Media
MP3 CD
in English
- MP3 Una edition
1400153859 9781400153855
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5
Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe
May 3, 2007, Viking Adult
Hardcover
in English
0670038555 9780670038558
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- Created April 29, 2008
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April 28, 2011 | Edited by OCLC Bot | Added OCLC numbers. |
August 10, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |