The Black Death and European Recovery

How Europe dug its way out of a cataclysm.

St. Martin’s Catheral in Ypres, Belgium. Source: Wikimedia

American history has mostly relegated disease and pandemics to the status of a footnote. With the exception of Native Americans and virgin soil disease, the story of America has omitted the onsets of yellow fever, malaria, and cholera that were vital to the experience of millions of Americans. These natural occurrences do not…