Throughout history, epidemics have repeatedly posed a single, provocative question: ‘Organise or die – what will you do?’ This book explores how different societies have answered. In ten concise, good-humoured chapters, the philosopher Anders Fogh Jensen tells the story of epidemics and control from the 13th century to the present. The book places the coronavirus pandemic into a historical perspective. It illuminates a range of strategies used to combat epidemics and the thinking behind them, and shows how epidemics inspire and act as catalysts for the brave new normal.

I swallowed the book whole in a single afternoon. It was like reading a thriller.

– Hildur Nielsen