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Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It Hardcover – November 19, 1999

by Gina Kolata (Author)

4.4 1,503 ratings

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The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease.

In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out.

Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Feeling tired, achy, and congested? You'll hope not after reading science writer Gina Kolata's engrossing Flu, a fascinating look at the 1918 epidemic that wiped out around 40 million people in less than a year and afflicted more than one of every four Americans. This tragedy, just on the heels of World War I and far more deadly, so traumatized the survivors that few would talk about it afterward. Kolata reports on the scientific investigation of this bizarre outbreak, in particular the attempts to sequence the virus' DNA from tissue samples of victims. She also looks at the social and personal effects of the disease, from improved public health awareness to the loss of productivity. (The disease affected 20- to 40-year-olds disproportionately.)

How could this disease, now almost trivial to healthy young people, have become so virulent? The answer is complex, invoking epidemiology, immunology, and even psychology, but Kolata cuts a swath through medical papers and statistical reports to tell a story of an out-of-control virus exploiting an exhausted world on the brink of transition into modern society. Through letters, interviews, and news reports, she pieces together a cautionary tale that captures the horror of a devastating illness. Research marches onward, but we're still at the mercy of something as simple as the flu. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

"It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease combined." Between 20 million and 100 million people worldwide died in the 1918 flu pandemic, but for years afterward this deadliest plague in history was almost completely forgotten. Histories and even medical texts rarely mentioned it. This disconnect between the flu's devastation and its obscurity is the starting point for Kolata's incisive history. She explains how the plague spread, covers the various speculations about its causes and origins and gives an account of the search to retrieve a specimen of the virus strain once genetic science had advanced enough to unravel the virus's mysteries. Tissue samplesAfrom an obese woman buried in the permafrost of Alaska and from two soldiers who died in army campsApreserved by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in thumb-sized bits of paraffin prove to be the last remaining sources of the 1918 strain. Kolata, a science writer for the New York Times and author of Clone, profiles the scientists who tracked down these samples, follows their investigations and explains their conclusions. Could such a deadly flu appear again? Many scientists fear it could, hence their quick response to the 1997 outbreak of chicken flu in Hong Kong, which led to the slaughter of 1.2 million birds and, Kolata argues, averted another worldwide disaster. Clearly explaining both the science and the social toll of the pandemic, Kolata writes an admirable history and soberly spells out how the U.S. government is preparedAor unpreparedAfor a similar public health threat today. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The science reporter for the New York Times examines one of the worst epidemics in history.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American

"The 1918 flu epidemic puts every other epidemic of this century to shame," Kolata writes. "It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS, and Alzheimer's disease combined." It is also "one of history's great conundrums," she says, in that despite its profound impact, little is said or known about it today. But a determined band of researchers has searched for and found the deadly virus in tissues preserved from victims. It is their story that Kolata (a science writer for the New York Times) tells, skillfully weaving into it an account of the epidemic's devastating effects and the pathology of the disease. Although the search for the causative virus has succeeded, she says, the effort to understand why the 1918 flu was such a killer has not. "We definitely have the right suspect," molecular pathologist Jeffery Taubenberger told Kolata, "but we do not yet know how the murder was committed."

From Booklist

The flu that swept the world in 1918^-19, killing 40 million people, is only vaguely familiar today. Kolata's fact-filled book will correct that situation, thanks to its fascinating accounting of the scientists, politicians, and sufferers involved in the epidemic. Kolata vividly describes the spreading of the great flu and the helpless feelings of the civilians and the military personnel who were swept up in it. She draws on popular and scientific resources and her own interviews with many scientists and laypersons to combine descriptions of the pandemic as it raged with accounts of important related work done during the past 25 years. Her reports of recent investigators who have sought to find the virus responsible for the pandemic in frozen bodies read like detective stories, and even the swine flu scare of 1976 receives detailed coverage. Ingeniously, Kolata makes Flu not only a history but also an instructive warning to heed in preparation for future epidemics. Readers wishing to dig deeper will be frustrated, though, by strange gaps in Kolata's documentation. William Beatty

From Kirkus Reviews

A still-unsolved medical mystery, expertly told: What caused the influenza pandemic of 1918, a disaster that dwarfs every other epidemic in this century? And could it happen again? New York Times science reporter Kolata (Clone: The Road to Dolly, 1998, etc.) was a microbiology major in college when the scope of the 1918 flu deaths first hit home for her: ``It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS, and Alzheimer's disease combined. In spite of the illness's devastating toll, the origin of the 1918 flu remains a mystery. Was it a mutation in an ordinary human flu virus that caused a transformation into a global killer? Or was it a crossover from an animal disease, like the variant of swine flu that has been investigated as a possible culprit? An especially perplexing aspect of the disease is its W- shaped death curve: There were peaks for children under five years, and for the elderly ages 70 to 74 yearsbut also a middle peak for 20-to-40-year-olds, a surprisingly vulnerable group. Those trying to determine the mode of transmission were unable to devise any method (and Kolata relates in revolting detail a number of failed attempts) to infect healthy subjects with the disease. Throughout, she provides a number of hair-raising descriptions of the disease, which eventually afflicted more than 25 percent of the US population. Along the way, readers also get a picture of the research world: At one point, many of those studying the elusive influenza viruses dropped that work to go after HIV. ``Every virologist loves a new virus, confesses English scientist John Oxford, and they mistakenly thought HIV was an easy cure. Kolata's is a knowledgeable voice, and her enthusiasm for the chase draws us into the intrigue. Her frightening conclusion? It could happen again, at any time. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"A luminous, impressive debut." -- Publishers Weekly

"Quirky and believable . . . consistently compelling." -- Susie Linfield, The Los Angeles Times

As well as its intrinsic excitement, Kolata's narrative offers a number of insights into the workings of science. -- The New York Times Book Review, David Papineau

About the Author

Gina Kolata is a science reporter for The New York Times and the author of Clone: The Road to Dolly and Sex in America. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition (November 19, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374157065
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374157067
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,141,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #610 in Communicable Diseases (Books)
- #1,222 in History of Medicine (Books)
- #3,943 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

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4.4 1,503 ratings

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Gina Kolata

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I’m a senior medical writer for the New York Times and the author of nine books and editor of three. I’ve given talks across the nation and in Europe and Asia and taught a science writing seminar at Princeton University. I have been on just about every major news and radio show including the morning news shows, Sixty Minutes, Charlie Rose, Steven Colbert, Fresh Air and most other NPR talk shows. I have won numerous prizes and was a Pulitzer finalist twice. And, strangely enough, I am also a Kentucky Colonel, like Colonel Sanders. But all that sounds like a resume, and what really matters of course is who am I and what motivates me and what do I care about? I like to think I am much more than my job, although my Times work is one of my passions. I have an incredible family and wonderful friends that I cherish. I love distance running – I’ve run five marathons – and road cycling. I knit and I cook. I love the ocean and cannot go through a summer without spending time at the beach. But my favorite seasons are summer and fall. I know, you think the next thing I will tell you is that I like pina coladas and walking in the rain. Actually, those are two things I do not like. But what I do like, what I turn to for sheer pleasure, is literary fiction. And when I decide to write a book, I latch onto the story. My books are meant to engage you, as they engage me. I want you to care about the narrative and the characters as much as I do. I want them to be page turners, but true, absolutely factual. And I want them to be rich with ethical and social issues so that you come away haunted by what you have just read.

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Korich

Well researched

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2020

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In a quest to give the Covid 19 pandemic a reference point and diminish the but wrenching fear that arose from the reports from Italy and New York, I revisited the reading I had done on the 1918-1920 pandemic. I landed upon this book when reading an article referencing this work.

While the Spanish Flu killed with efficiency in the second wave, the research to uncover the mysteries of a deadly flu are not as efficient. This book outlines the difficulty science has in climbing an almost impossibly steep mountain of information and with a modicum of viable samples, sorting for clues to bring an iota of enlightenment into an abyss of unknowns. I applaud the scientists searching for answers, the medical professionals facing a ruthless monster every day, the survivors with shattered bodies and lives, and the every day citizen who struggles in the confusion between.

Gina Kolata is a meticulous researcher and careful in not lending author opinion into uncovered facts. The book is well written and reads like a mystery three quarters of the way through. I found the last quarter to be a bit confusing, for one, what I know about viruses, could, well, be held inside a virus. I came away with a better understanding of medical terminology and great respect for those trying to disarm any virus, especially Covid 19.

Thank you Gina Kolata for writing this book. The reading has helped me understand there will be an end to this terrible pandemic.

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Elizabeth Rose

Interesting but a bit dated

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2021

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For those who are unfamiliar with how influenza functions, both in the body and in society, this book is a good introduction. It's history of the 1918 pandemic is also very good, albeit succinct, given the scope of the material. Crosby, who wrote the original history back in the 1980s, is referenced often.

The early efforts to find and interpret the genetic code are also fascinating to me, especially as biomolecular and genetic science have advanced significantly in 22 years. (For example, there is a reference made to a gene editor - a predecessor to CRISPr - but it is made as an aside, rather than reflecting the significant role gene editors have today in genetic analysis.) It was no doubt breaking ground in 1999, revealing the state of the art for the layperson, but now it serves as a fascinating snapshot to a piece of the scientific history that helped advance us into the Covid-19 era of scientific inquiry, when influenza virus is still a concern, but one of now several different zoonotic viruses about which we must be vigilant.

I deducted a star because the book takes a couple of - in my opinion - unnecessarily long tangents, even for 1999. One involved 1976 swine flu scare. A brief overview would have sufficed, and overview that put the swine flu in clearer perpective at the outset. The reader spends the first half of the book wondering what does this swine flu have to do wirh 1918 H1N1?

There is also unnecessary emphasis placed on a mission to retrieve tissue from 1918 victims believed to be preserved in permafrost on Svalbard. My suspicion is that the mission, being contemporaneous with the author's research, seemed more important at the time than it actually proved to be. It could have been described in a half a chapter or less.

The area where the book stands out, in my opinion, is in describing the scramble to understand the 1997 bird flu. Here, there is a clear throughline to our own era of trying to capture zoonotic transfer before it becomes a pandemic. It was prevented in 1997, but not in 2020. There are lessons in the comparison from which we can learn.

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BradleyK

One of the three books that must be read about the 1918 flu

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2020

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First of all, Gina Kolata is marvolous scicene writer. I have been reading her articles in the New York Times for years. This book gives a perspective on the 1918 flu that is defferent from other books I have read about the 1918 flu. She writes, basically a summary of the flu, and then writes about the lack of historians writings about it because they thought is was so horrible. But then she writes about the great swine flu debacle during President Ford's Adminstration and the implications of swine flu in general. Then she tell the story about a long ago decades atempt to revover the actual 1918 flu virus and map its genome and ry to discover why was this flu SO deadly. The first attempt was a failure because it was to early in medical history and technology. The second attempt had two paths going simultaneously to find the 1918 virus. One was started in the "present day" and the other was a follow up to the long ago decades attempt to recover the actual 1918 flu virus. Would either path win? If one path did win, which was it and what were the results of the win? Read the book for "The Rest of the Story."

By the way the first must read book about the 1918 flu isAlfred W. Crosby's "America's Forgotten Pandemic" (https://smile.amazon.com/Americas-Forgotten-Pandemic-Influenza-1918-dp-0521541751/dp/0521541751).

The second must be read book is this reviewed book, "Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It" by Gina Kolata.

The third must read book is "The Great Influenza" by John M. Berry (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491).

Both Gina Kolota and John Berry reference Crosby's book. John Barry's books also references Kolata's book. But references do not tell you the referenced book. They tell you a sentence or a few. Each of these three books take the information from the previous books and builds on them. Book 2 builds on Book 1. Book 3 Builds on Book 1 and 2. Unfortunately I did not realize that I have read book three, then book 2. I have book 1 an will be starting it soon. I found that book 3 referenced book 2 early in the book. WTF! Then it reference book 1. WTF again? So I bought Book 1 from Amazon and will start reading it after my current read unless something else comes in higher on the RADAR. Then re-read book 2 and then re-read book 3. No prob Bob. I have read many books I have several times and have always found something new in them everytime.

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mcentegart

The 1918 flu epidemic was exacerbated by the concurrent WWI.

Reviewed in Canada on July 30, 2021

Verified Purchase

Very well researched and written.

Mauricio S Jardini

An excellent book. This is the time to read it

Reviewed in Brazil on April 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

If you think the officials of health management always think about the public, think again. Also think about the press behavior. Read this book

Steffen und Meike Schoppe

Beinahe schon erschreckend aktuell

Reviewed in Germany on May 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

Ich werde vermutlich nie wieder eine “einfache Grippe" mit der selben Unbefangenheit sehen wir vor der Lektüre dieses Buches. Ein guter und vielschichtiger Abriß der Forschung zum Thema. Interessant und flüssig geschrieben. Unbedingt lesenswert!

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Simon Rotelli

Ne compro due copie cartacee per mia nipote e le mie figlie...

Reviewed in Italy on April 21, 2020

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... ovviamente appena torneranno ad essere disponibili.

Ho iniziato a leggerlo con il pensiero di aver scelto una lettura scontata in questo momento, e mi sono trovato a leggerlo tutto d'un fiato!

Una ricostruzione storica con le informazioni scientifiche che via via accrescono per noi profani la conoscenza del funzionamento dei virus, il tutto con il ritmo e la suspence del giallo, davvero interessante e scritto molto bene.

È naturalmente anche una fonte inestimabile di informazioni sulla durata e sulle conseguenze della lotta al Coronavirus.

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peterkin

An extraordinary tale.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2019

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Good condition.Very interesting read.Prompt delivery. What more can one ask?

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