In All Societies Die, Samuel Cohn asks us to prepare for the inevitable. Our society is going to die. What are you going to do about it? But he also wants us to know that there's still reason for ...hope. In an immersive and mesmerizing discussion Cohn considers what makes societies (throughout history) collapse. All Societies Die points us to the historical examples of the Byzantine empire, the collapse of Somalia, the rise of Middle Eastern terrorism, the rise of drug cartels in Latin America and the French Revolution to explain how societal decline has common features and themes. Cohn takes us on an easily digestible journey through history. While he unveils the past, his message to us about the present is searing. Through his assessment of past—and current—societies, Cohn offers us a new way of looking at societal growth and decline. With a broad panorama of bloody stories, unexpected historical riches, crime waves, corruption, and disasters, he shows us that although our society will, inevitably, die at some point, there's still a lot we can do to make it better and live a little longer. His quirky and inventive approach to an "end-of-the-world" scenario should be a warning. We're not there yet. Cohn concludes with a strategy of preserving and rebuilding so that we don't have to give a eulogy anytime soon.
Over the last few years, genomic studies on Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of all known plague epidemics, have considerably increased in numbers, spanning a period of about 5,000 y. ...Nonetheless, questions concerning historical reservoirs and routes of transmission remain open. Here, we present and describe five genomes from the second half of the 14th century and reconstruct the evolutionary history of Y. pestis by reanalyzing previously published genomes and by building a comprehensive phylogeny focused on strains attributed to the Second Plague Pandemic (14th to 18th century). Corroborated by historical and ecological evidence, the presented phylogeny, which includes our Y. pestis genomes, could support the hypothesis of an entry of plague into Western European ports through distinct waves of introduction during the Medieval Period, possibly by means of fur trade routes, as well as the recirculation of plague within the human population via trade routes and human movement.
In All Societies Die , Samuel Cohn asks us to prepare
for the inevitable. Our society is going to die. What are you going
to do about it? But he also wants us to know that there's still
reason for ...hope.
In an immersive and mesmerizing discussion Cohn considers what
makes societies (throughout history) collapse. All Societies
Die points us to the historical examples of the Byzantine
empire, the collapse of Somalia, the rise of Middle Eastern
terrorism, the rise of drug cartels in Latin America and the French
Revolution to explain how societal decline has common features and
themes. Cohn takes us on an easily digestible journey through
history. While he unveils the past, his message to us about the
present is searing.
Through his assessment of past-and current-societies, Cohn
offers us a new way of looking at societal growth and decline. With
a broad panorama of bloody stories, unexpected historical riches,
crime waves, corruption, and disasters, he shows us that although
our society will, inevitably, die at some point, there's still a
lot we can do to make it better and live a little longer.
His quirky and inventive approach to an "end-of-the-world"
scenario should be a warning. We're not there yet. Cohn concludes
with a strategy of preserving and rebuilding so that we don't have
to give a eulogy anytime soon.
Contrary to received opinion, revolts and popular protests in medieval English towns were as frequent and as sophisticated, if not more so, as those in the countryside. This groundbreaking study ...refocuses attention on the varied nature of popular movements in towns from Carlisle to Dover and from the London tax revolt of Longbeard in 1196 to Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450, exploring the leadership, social composition, organisation and motives of popular rebels. The book charts patterns of urban revolt in times of strong and weak kingship, contrasting them with the broad sweep of ecological and economic change that inspired revolts on the continent. Samuel Cohn demonstrates that the timing and character of popular revolt in England differed radically from revolts in Italy, France and Flanders. In addition, he analyses repression and waves of hate against Jews, foreigners and heretics, opening new vistas in the comparative history of late medieval Europe.
This article briefly surveys the history of pandemics in the West, contesting long‐held assumptions that epidemics sparked hatred and blame of the ‘Other’, and that it was worse when diseases were ...mysterious as to their causes and cures. The article finds that blame and hate were rarely connected with pandemics in history. In antiquity, epidemics more often brought societies together rather than dividing them as continued to happen with some diseases such as influenza in modernity. On the other hand, some diseases such as cholera were more regularly blamed than others and triggered violence even after their agents and mechanisms of transmission had become well known.
To answer how epidemics end, one must ask two intersecting but separate questions: first, how particular waves of epidemics end, whether of yellow fever, cholera, plague; and second, how epidemic ...diseases become eradicated-either through scientific intervention, as with smallpox in the 1970s, or simply by disappearing for reasons that remain mysterious, as with the Second Plague Pandemic from ca. 1347. This article challenges two general notions on how epidemics end. First, individual waves of plagues in European municipalities or regional states did not just fade into the sunset. By the late 16th century, their ends were celebrated with artistic displays, musical and poetic performances, ex-voto gifts, and bangs ranging from tambourines to military salutes. Second, the five-century Second Pandemic of plague-that is, the disease-did not end with declarations or scripted performances, but with another sort of bang. Instead of the usual assumption that epidemic diseases decline gradually over time, progressively inflicting lighter loads of virulence and mortality, the last significant plague outbreaks in most regions in Europe returned to heights of mortality not seen since the Black Death of 1347-1351. Finally, this article adds an obvious but rarely mentioned variable for understanding epidemic endings. Before widespread vaccination, the characteristics of these disappearances depended on the type of disease.
The Dramaturgy of Epidemics Cohn, Samuel K
Bulletin of the history of medicine,
2020, Letnik:
94, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
My essay focuses on Charles Rosenberg's provocative and enduring ideal type of epidemic drama in three acts, which he assembled from a vast knowledge of disease history that stretched from the end of ...the seventeenth century to his then-present pandemic, HIV/AIDS of the 1980s. Reaching back to the Plague of Athens, my essay elaborates on Rosenberg's dramaturgy by questioning whether blame, division, and collective violence were so universal or even the dominant "acts" of epidemics not only before the nineteenth century but to the present. Instead, with certain pandemics such as yellow fever in the Deep South or the Great Influenza of 1918-20, unity, mass volunteerism, and self-abnegation played leading roles. Finally, not all epidemics ended "with a whimper" as attested by the long early modern history of plague. These often concluded literally with a bang: lavish planning of festivals of thanksgiving, choreographed with processions, innumerable banners, commissions of paintings, ex-voto churches, trumpets, tambourines, artillery fire, and fireworks.
From the perspective of the Black Death, the economic consequences for laborers in our unfolding pandemic, COVID-19, might come as a surprise. Instead of labor shortages benefiting workers, ...especially the unskilled, and narrowing the gap between rich and poor, our pandemic has sent economic inequality racing forward across the world with laborers’ health and material well-being plummeting. However, a closer examination of the Black Death suggests that the consequences for labor of the two pandemics may not be as different as first assumed. This essay explores the silver lining for labor after the dramatic crash in population caused by the Black Death and subsequent waves of plague during the second half of the fourteenth century. By first turning to Europe as a whole and then concentrating on Italy, this essay challenges notions that labor conditions and standards of living improved immediately after the Black Death's halving of populations and that these changes were almost universal across Europe or even within city-states, such as Florence, or in rural areas hosting different sorts of agricultural workers. In Italy, where real wages have been calculated, the Black Death's silver lining for laborers failed to arrive until two or three generations after 1348. Moreover, compressing economic inequality from the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth centuries spurred reactions from elites that wrought new inequalities in other spheres of activity.
Unilateral cochlear nerve deficiency in children Clemmens, Clarice S; Guidi, Jessica; Caroff, Aviva ...
Otolaryngology-head and neck surgery,
August 2013, Letnik:
149, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Cochlear nerve deficiency (CND) is increasingly diagnosed in children with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). We sought to determine the prevalence of CND, its imaging characteristics, and ...correlations with audiologic phenotype in children with unilateral SNHL.
Case series with chart review.
Tertiary pediatric hospital.
In 128 consecutive children with unilateral SNHL who underwent high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging, the diameters, area, and signal intensity of the cochlear nerve (CN) were measured and normalized to the ipsilateral facial nerve. Presence of CND was determined by comparison to normative data. Relationships among hearing loss severity, progression, and nerve size were investigated.
Cochlear nerve deficiency was present in 26% of children with unilateral SNHL. Its prevalence was higher (48%) in severe to profound SNHL, especially when in infants (100%). Width of the bony cochlear nerve canal (BCNC) correlated strongly with relative CN diameter, density, and area (R = 0.5); furthermore, a narrow BCNC (<1.7 mm) strongly predicted CND. Severity of hearing loss modestly correlated with nerve size, although significant variability was observed. Progression never occurred unless there were other inner ear malformations, whereas in the non-CND group, it occurred in 22%. Ophthalmologic abnormalities were very common (67%) in CND children, particularly oculomotor disturbances.
Cochlear nerve deficiency is a common cause of unilateral SNHL, particularly in congenital unilateral deafness. Width of the BCNC effectively predicts CND, a finding useful when only computed tomography imaging is available. In an ear with CND, hearing can be expected to remain stable over time. Diagnosis should prompt evaluation by an ophthalmologist.
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