Plague is a terrifying mystery. In the Middle Ages, it wiped out 40 million people -- 40 percent of the total population in Europe. Seven hundred years earlier, the Justinian Plague destroyed the Byzantine Empire and ushered in the Middle Ages. The plague of London in the seventeenth century killed more than 1,000 people a day. In the early twentieth century, plague again swept Asia, taking the lives of 12 million in India alone. Even more frightening is what it could do to us in the near future. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian scientists created genetically altered, antibiotic-resistant and vaccine-resistant strains of plague that can bypass the human immune system and spread directly from person to person. These weaponized strains still exist, and they could be replicated in almost any laboratory. Wendy Orent's Plague pieces together a fascinating and terrifying historical whodunit. Drawing on the latest research in labs around the world, along with extensive interviews with American and Soviet plague experts, Orent offers nothing less than a biography of a disease. Plague helped bring down the Roman Empire and close the Middle Ages; it has had a dramatic impact on our history, yet we still do not fully understand its own evolution. Orent's retelling of the four great pandemics makes for gripping reading and solves many puzzles. Why did some pandemics jump from person to person, while others relied on insects as carriers? Why are some strains more virulent than others? Orent reveals the key differences among rat-based, prairie dog-based, and marmot-based plague. The marmots of Central Asia, in particular, have long been hosts to the most virulent and frightening form of the disease, a form that can travel around the world in the blink of an eye. From its ability to hide out in the wild, only to spring back into humanity with a terrifying vengeance, to its elusive capacity to develop suddenly greater virulence and transmissibility, plague is a protean nightmare. To make matters worse, Orent's disturbing revelations about the former Soviet bioweapon programs suggest that the nightmare may not be over. Plague is chilling reading at the dawn of a new age of bioterrorism.

While the plague of 1665 rips through London, young spies work to uncover a plot to kill the king.

Erehmiehr—the ageless, soulless warlock of the infinite multiverse—must kill to stay sane. He must keep supplying souls to his matron deity, the Goddess of Death, or succumb to madness. Fed up with his matron’s demands, Erehmiehr sets out to reclaim his soul. Passing through a desolate town on his journey, Erehmiehr learns that some mysterious creature is luring the town’s children to its domain and killing them. The old warrior steps up, only to find his match—a young necromancer. As the two monsters clash, a child’s life hangs in the balance.

Medical Entomology has in course of time undergone a transformation from a mere traditional knowledge of the discipline to the one that stresses emphatically on harvesting a plethora of insects' infinite 'biomedical' properties. Our familiarity with the medically important insects and other arthropods has, therefore, been expanded in this book to explore unlimited biomedical significance of these tiny yet most successful creatures on earth with about four million species. In addition to having a first-hand information on the pestilent/ vectorial importance of arthropods, particularly various vector-borne infections, an ingenious attempt has been made to unveil their medicinal value in different contexts. Having au fait with the fact that environment plays a key role in regulating disease epidemiology of a given vector-borne infection, adequate emphasis is laid to trace the various pathways governing the linkages amongst the vector-pathogen-host triad. The book offers a detailed account of various poisonous and injurious arthropods, along with the venoms' action on the human being. The book should hopefully serve a good purpose to both the students of zoology and medicine as well as professional researchers.

A blend of memoir, history, and travelogue exploring the ancient Egyptian city on the eve of the Arab Spring: “Fresh and original . . . quietly virtuosic.” —The Wall Street Journal Blending aspects of memoir, history, and travel narrative into an elegant and unique tapestry, Peter Stothard uses the sights and sounds of the ancient city to reconnect with the experiences that shaped him and sparked a passionate interest in the life of Cleopatra. Melancholy, yet often humorous, Alexandria probingly deconstructs the enigma of modern Egypt—with its uneasy mix of classical touchstones and increasingly volatile Middle Eastern politics—and offers a firsthand glimpse into the fracturing state just before the Tahrir Square uprising and the start of the Arab Spring. Includes photographs “A thoroughly enjoyable combination of history, autobiography, travel and general musings about Alexandria . . . Don’t try to categorize this book; just read it and let it flow over you.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A chance trip to Alexandria and a lifelong love affair with Cleopatra coalesce . . . Staying in Alexandria’s Metropole Hotel and guided through the city by the at turns effusive and secretive Socratis and Mahmoud, Stothard relates not only his encounters with the remnants of Cleopatra throughout Alexandria but also the origins of his fascination with the Egyptian queen.” —Publishers Weekly

In this richly illustrated volume, Paul Binski provides an absorbing account of the social, theological, and cultural issues involved in death and dying in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the early sixteenth century. He draws on textual, archaeological, and art historical sources to examine pagan and Christian attitudes toward the dead, the aesthetics of death and the body, burial ritual, and mortuary practice. Illustrated throughout with fascinating and sometimes disturbing images, Binski's account weaves together close readings of a variety of medieval thinkers. He discusses the impact of the Black Death on late medieval art and examines the development of the medieval tomb, showing the changing attitudes toward the commemoration of the dead between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. In one chapter, Binski analyzes macabre themes in art and literature, including the Dance of Death, which reflect the medieval obsession with notions of humility, penitence, and the dangers of bodily corruption. In another, he studies the progress of the soul after death through the powerful descriptions of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory in Dante and other writers and through portrayals of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse in sculpture and large-scale painting.