Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World

The haunting story of a virus that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times.

“Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story.” ―The Guardian

The flu pandemic of 1918–1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth―from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll far higher than that of World War I, the 1918 flu is little more than a historical afterthought.

In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney reveals how the virus traveled across the globe, exposing humanity’s vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. She demonstrates how the 1918 flu shaped the modern world by disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, and family structures.

Now with a new afterword reflecting on the impacts of COVID-19, Pale Rider is a masterful account of the catastrophe that forever changed humanity.

Laura Spinney is a science journalist. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, Nature, The Economist, and The Guardian, among others. She is also the author of Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, the story of the Indo-European languages. She lives in Paris, France.