In The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research, celebrated medievalist Dorsey Armstrong corrects explanations of the famous medieval pandemic that are now known to be inaccurate and offers a more robust description of plague biology. COVID-19 isn’t likely to be humanity’s last experience with a zoonotic disease, so what can we learn now from these two pandemics that could help us in the future?
The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research
Revisit the past to examine what the medieval experience of the Black Death can teach us about our own world and the science of disease.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
jlsw from
Timely topic
Dr Armstrong is highly engaging as she updates us on the new information that has been learned about The Black Death of Medieval times. She also compares that pandemic to the Covid-19 pandemic, giving us insight into important and relevant lessons to be learned today.
Date published: 2023-11-18
Rated 3 out of
5
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Anonymous from
Will need another series about Yersinia Pestis
There will be a need for another series as Yersinia pestis has been found to have arisen in the Ukraine about 12 thousand years ago.
It was passed by body fluids at first then evolved to the other types.
Date published: 2023-08-31
Rated 2 out of
5
by
SJGMD from
Dorsey's Covid cabin fever
First three chapters are on topic and interesting. However, to avoid tired far-left, academic, Marxist chants and rants, with the joyful bashing of the United States, avoid last few chapters. Chapter 6, I recall, is mostly a bizarre and tedious review of a sci-fi fiction book by David Harris, where Dorsey becomes a semi-clairvoyant philosopher advising Americans on how to escape their impending and certain doom by following the examples of Italian clerics. At the end, Dorsey goes for the touchdown and calls for implementing universal income.
Date published: 2023-07-17
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Nickname77 from
Captivating
This was a welcome update. Things always evolve, and it is nice to see evolve with them. This was captivating and educational. The instructor was interesting to listen to.
Date published: 2023-04-07
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Vietnam 1968 from
Great Tie-In with COVID reactions
Great job of discussing the reactions of much of our populace to the link of COVID to China. It was apparent the lecturer felt very strongly about this and did a wonderful job of refuting ... and condemning ... the efforts of many Americans to blame Asians for spreading COVID. It was particularly useful to point out that this was probably due in large part to latent bigotry that was brought to the surface by the pandemic. Good job Dorsey!
Date published: 2023-03-27
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Fancie 14 from
First 5 lectures were very informative..
but, the last 2 lectures included a lot of social commentary and political pontification.I couldn't believe my ears. She certainly has a right to her social/political opinion, but NOT in this venue. I like many folks these days I've had a belly full of politics! I've been buying Great Course products for over nearly 26 years and this one ranks near the bottom. You
won't learn too many new lessons from this one.
Date published: 2023-03-08
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Avid viewer from
Good topic and professor until political bias came
I saw the first Black Death series and loved it! But this one was different. Sadly the professors personal and
Political bias came through the subject matter.
Date published: 2023-03-01
Rated 2 out of
5
by
JP00 from
Intresting new Info
Interesting new perspective but to much unrelated personal opinions and bias. Information could be condensed in 3 lectures
Date published: 2023-01-31
Overview
About
Dorsey Armstrong is a Professor of English and Medieval Literature at Purdue University, where she is also the head of the Department of English. She received her PhD in Medieval Literature from Duke University. She is the executive editor of the academic journal Arthuriana, which publishes cutting-edge research on the legend of King Arthur, from its medieval origins to its modern enactments. She is a recipient of the Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, Purdue’s top undergraduate teaching honor. Her other Great Courses include The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague and The Medieval World.
Trailer
01: Reassessing the Black Death
As we deal with our own 21st-century pandemic, the curious among us have looked back to the 14th-century pandemic known as the Black Death. You’ll be surprised to discover how many of our assumptions and conclusions about that time have been upended as new methods of scientific inquiry have been applied to old questions.
21 min
02: A Deeper Dive into Rat and Flea Behavior
A deeper understanding of rat and flea biology and behavior along with the 21st-century ability to examine ancient DNA have allowed us to correct long-held assumptions about the origin of the three known plague pandemics. Follow the fascinating scientific trail that now allows us to state with certainty where the plague did—and did not—originate.
26 min
03: Human-to-Human Plague Transmission
Medieval peoples suffered from the unpredictability of the pandemic as it exploded in some seasons and locations, died down, and then showed up again years later. Explore what we have recently learned about transmission of the four types of plague—bubonic, pneumonic, septicemic, and digestive—and how that affected the timing and intensity of outbreaks.
17 min
04: Plague, Grain, and the Mongols
We now know the grain trade was responsible for the movement of black rats and their fleas around the medieval world. Learn how a serious increase in European urbanization and well-established trade networks set the continent up for a devastating fall once the Mongols pushed west into the area.
31 min
05: The Big Bang of the Black Death
Scientists have discovered that what gave the Black Death its stunning lethality and transmissibility was a mutation in a bacterial strain about 100 years before the plague showed up in Europe. Explore the genetics of Yersinia pestis and learn how scientists have confirmed that plague came into the European world only one time.
26 min
06: The Fate of the Plague’s Survivors
We now understand better than ever that the experience of a pandemic—both then and now—is not a singular event or occurrence. It is an ongoing trauma, and we have no way to know when it will be over. Examine the inherent societal flaws that pandemics reveal and consider whether any of our social, economic, medical, and political safety nets held up the way we had hoped.
22 min
07: The Old World Falls Away
For those who survived the upheaval of this medieval pandemic, European life—and even the understanding of the very purpose of government—had forever changed. Study the many ways in which society responded to this massive depopulation and its associated problems by looking at the social networks that were developed to better combat plague and provide relief and support.
24 min
