Okay, maybe not extinguish, but certainly a long-lasting dimming was a possibility. Philip Ziegler penned a spectacular survey of the 14th century disaster which could've flipped the human lights off permanently. It is a grievous ornament that breaks out in a rash. It gave me a deeper understanding of the plague and served as a good jumping point from which I can branch out. Still, this book is intended as a popular history and it filled a void that I appreciated. This adds little to our understanding of the plague. In a discussion on medieval labor, Ziegler concludes that while some historians believe this plague had a revolutionary impact on working conditions, that wasn't the case in all parts of England, so therefore the plague had an impact somewhere between nothing and revolutionary. These chapters go over what effect the plague had on society.

Ziegler's theses in the final chapters are very wishy-washy.

Some of the statistics are very minute, including the number of, say, deacons in a particular parish. All these chapters describe possible population decreases with Ziegler plowing through a tremendous amount of sources in order to come to a happy medium when those sources disagree. Five of the book's fourteen chapters focus on the spread of the plague in England, while Italy and the rest of continental Europe receive only two chapters. The majority of the book focuses on the statistics of the plague in England. It has two faults: 1) a research dependent on England, and 2) very vague conclusions. 'The Black Death' is a very tedious, though well-researched book. Wishy-Washy Tales, Lots About England, Overall Readable

The black death by philip ziegler