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Old 09-20-2007, 10:28 AM
dylan's alias dylan's alias is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 279
Default Re: Recommend me some good historical reading

This may not be the broad overview you are looking for, but The Great Influenza amazon is an excellent book. The science is presented in a very understandable way. It gives a nice overview of some of the history of medicine (specifically infectious disease) and how everything changed as a result of the influenza epidemic. The thing you might find most interesting is how local politics, individual choices and most importantly, WW1 impacted a "natural" phenomenon. To me, this is the most interesting thing about history. Too often, it seems like history just happens, moved by forces bigger than one individual. Even the individuals who clearly shape history often become larger than life. The small stories which don't get told are often more interesting (and frequently as important) as the giant events which make it into textbooks.
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