More Deadly Than War by Kenneth C. Davis

Title: More Deadly Than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War

Author: Kenneth C. Davis

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. 2018

Genre: Nonfiction - History, Science

Pages: 304

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Nonfiction Reader; Winter TBR

Where I Got It: Library

*2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the worst disease outbreak in modern times: the Spanish flu, a story even more relevant today. This dramatic narrative, told through the stories and voices of the people caught in the deadly maelstrom, explores how this vast, global epidemic was intertwined with the horrors of World War I―and how it could happen again.

Complete with photographs, period documents, modern research, and firsthand reports by medical professionals and survivors, More Deadly Than War provides captivating insight into a catastrophe that transformed America in the early twentieth century.*

Arthur was covering World War I for history and I had an urge to read a Spanish Flu book to go along with. I grabbed this one at the library and it was okay. Even though this was listed in the adult section, it reads like a young adult nonfiction book. I found some of the passages to be elementary and repetitive. I fully admit that I know more than the average person when it comes to the Spanish Flu and WWI. This felt more like a primer on the subjects than a deep dive in epidemiology. I even skipped an entire chapter that was just covering the broad strokes of the war. The second half got a little more interesting with more first hand accounts of the epidemic. But it wasn’t enough to really save this one for me.

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