Black Death
Thomas Asbridge’s remarkable new book reveals the global impact of humanity’s greatest natural disaster, and the terrible human cost of this calamity.
'This ambitious book tracks the pandemic’s global spread... With a focus on the human element, the author not only illustrates the terror and upheaval of this terrible time but also looks at the lives of those who lived through the Black Death, from royalty to the working class... Asbridge’s exceptional research ultimately reveals humanity’s capacity for empathy and survival' - Blackwell's, The Most Anticipated Books of 2026
In the mid-fourteenth century, a lethal plague struck the medieval world, causing unimaginable suffering and destruction. This terrifying pandemic – the Black Death – was unquestionably one of history’s defining episodes, yet a critical feature of its progress has often been ignored: the disease was not confined to Europe, but rather affected almost all of the known world, including the Near and Middle East, Byzantium, north Africa and Asia.
Tracing the pandemic’s course across the medieval globe, The Black Death contrasts the experiences of different peoples, including Christians, Muslims and Jews, charting this catastrophe’s transformative effects on diverse aspects of medieval life. And crucially, Asbridge demonstrates that the plague was often at its most destructive in the Islamic world, where it ultimately played a role in the collapse of the mighty Mamluk Empire.
The Black Death also brings the human drama of this calamitous era to life, evoking the terror and the turmoil that beset cities such as London, Cairo and Florence. Asbridge reconstructs the lives of the men, women and children who faced the Black Death – from ruling monarchs to peasant farmers – laying bare both the abject horror they endured and the courageous resolve they often demonstrated while striving to survive.
Uncovering a story that speaks to our own age, The Black Death highlights humankind’s capacity for compassion and resilience amidst a global crisis to explain how the medieval world confronted, and ultimately overcame, this shattering pandemic.