Flu Epidemic of 1918

<p>In 1918 a devastating world-wide influenza epidemic hit the United States. Killing over 600000 Americans and causing the national death rate to jump 30% in a single year the outbreak obstructed the country's participation in World War I and imposed terrible challenges on communities across the United States.</p> <p>This epidemic provides an ideal lens for understanding the history of infectious disease in the United States. <i>The Flu Epidemic of 1918 </i>examines the impact of the outbreak on health medicine government and individual people's lives and also explores the puzzle of Americans' decades-long silence about the experience once it was over. In a concise narrative bolstered by primary sources including newspaper articles eye-witness accounts and government reports Sandra Opdycke provides undergraduates with an unforgettable introduction to the 1918 epidemic and its after-effects.</p>