How long does it take to read The American Plague?
the untold story of yellow fever, the epidemic that shaped our history
Molly Caldwell Crosby
The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby takes about 5 hours 52 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 52 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2006. 320 pages, about 88,000 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 47 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 52 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 40 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In this account, a journalist traces the course of yellow fever, stopping in 1878 Memphis to "vividly [evoke] the Faulkner-meets-'Dawn of the Dead' horrors,"-and moving on to today's strain of the killer virus.Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined.In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country-and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism,"* it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
Subjects: Yellow fever, History, Communicable Disease Control, Gelbfieber, Epidemie, Geschichte
