Deadly pandemics have always been a part of life, from the Great Mortality of the Middle Ages to the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. Many of these diseases might have seemed like things to read about in history books—until the unthinkable happened, and lives were turned upside down by the emergence of the novel coronavirus. In this fast-paced, wide-ranging story filled with facts, pictures, and diagrams, voices of the past are brought to life in an exploration of history’s deadliest diseases.