Abstract
Pandemic Re-awakenings brings together various studies of the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. In the Preface, Jay Winter writes, ‘It is time to make room for the story of collective failures, of non-heroic histories, of narratives in which the limits of human agency are painfully apparent’ (p. xxvii). This statement defines the text, distinguishing it from other works on the ‘Spanish’ influenza. Unlike others, Pandemic Re-awakenings does not simply retell or speculate the path of that twentieth-century viral nightmare. Instead, authors each delve into different aspects of both crisis moments and their place (or absence) in collective memory.
The COVID pandemic invigorated public interest in past epidemics and pandemics, particularly stories and research on the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. How people functioned in past times of mass health crises has particularly been of interest in the last few years, fueling an interest in John Barry’s (2005) The Great Influenza and other older books about the influenza pandemic, many of which are mentioned in Pandemic Re-awakenings. Stories paralleled COVID and influenza 1918–1919 in topics that included ‘holidays during influenza and now’ (‘How the Flu Pandemic Changed Halloween in 1918’ (Little, 2020)), face coverings (‘The Mask Slackers of 1918’ (Hauser 2020)) and quarantines (‘How Some Cities “Flattened the Curve” During the 1918 Flu Pandemic’ (Strochlic and Riley, 2020)). While these articles helped people to make sense of the COVID pandemic, they lacked the depth of scholarly books, failing to acknowledge that influenza and COVID cannot be truly compared. In addition, books have certainly addressed the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic as part of texts that offer collections of significant disease outbreaks in history, exemplified in Constructing the Outbreak: Epidemics in Media and Collective Memory (Foss, 2020).
Pandemic Re-awakenings could not come at a better time as we attempt to make sense of the last few years. Unlike the quickly produced surface-level books, the chapters in this book are incredibly well-researched and written. Each author offers a unique contribution to the histories of this moment. And, in the realm of academic books, Pandemic Re-awakenings also stands out. The theme in this book is not simply a chronological retelling of a particular place or angle (i.e. how a town fared throughout the rise and fall of cases in its geographic area). Nor is it a series of works stuck in the past – isolated and divorced from contemporary ways of understanding the world.
The overarching theme of Pandemic Re-awakenings is, in fact, its greatest strength. Under the umbrella of what is remembered, forgotten and then rediscovered, contributors present a new way of thinking about this century-old, but certainly relevant, historical time. Moreover, its stories do not stay rigid in the past, but are skillfully connected to contemporary events, feelings and experiences. In this manner, we are reminded that pandemics bring about feelings and experiences of grief and trauma, even a century apart.
In the volume’s Introduction, editor Guy Beiner introduces readers to the 1918–1919 influenza, providing a thorough overview of the virus’s likely geographical path. At the same time, Beiner highlights scholarly work in this area, noting the paucity of attention to the pandemic in history. More than just summarizing the pandemic’s notable absence in much of historical retelling, Beiner delves into why moments are forgotten – contextualized both in the parallel horrors of the Great War at that time and the traumatic past that hinders one’s willingness and ability to articulate the recent experience of pain and loss.
The anthology is divided into four parts. Following the conceptualization of the text in the introduction, the first section, ‘Personal Histories’ brings together both oral recollections and analyses of historians who sought to capture this moment. Particularly, noteworthy is Hannah Mawdsley’s chapter on historian Richard Collier. Histories of medicine rarely shed light on those who write the histories. Here, Mawdsley takes readers through the journey of Collier’s research process, including the legacy of the primary documents he helped to collect. This chapter is far from just a myriad of praise for Collier’s work. Instead, Mawdsley addresses other important factors that shape the process of both gathering historical documents and sharing them with the public. With this analysis, the chapter becomes as much of a look into how and why history is preserved and talked about in the way that it is. It is not often that such a perspective on the historian’s work is offered.
Across ‘Part I: Personal Histories’, ‘Part II: Communal Histories’ and ‘Part III: Medical Histories’, authors explore experiences in different parts of the world – including stories that have never been academically studied. Contributors centre around people whose experiences were lost, marginalized, overlooked or silenced. David Killingray, Howard Phillips and Claudio Bertolli Filho provide extensive detail of the experiences of those typically rendered invisible – the people of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, along with marginalized populations of the Americas. In using different marginalized groups as examples, these authors discuss the challenge of preserving memories without written records, particularly in primarily oral societies. Songs and rhymes about influenza captured the moment, to be repeated and passed on by children. Not only did these communities face the ravaging virus but they also simultaneously battled poverty, famine and other diseases, amplifying mortality rates. Furthermore, the contributors shed light on how influenza was experienced in both similar and different ways compared to more industrialized parts of the world. For example, religion, communication and the extent to which they had a connection to the outside world profoundly impacted beliefs in causality and prevention. The pandemic’s impact was felt in more than lives immediately lost, affecting agriculture and other critical areas.
Through oral or written histories of more than 170 South African influenza survivors, Howard Phillips talks about the trauma of retelling or not sharing the stories of living in the crisis. For some survivors, the memories were simply too painful to articulate to others. Phillips offers some insight into the competing discourses of the Great War to influenza. As he states, the Great War was universally and visibly remembered. Casualties of the War were heroized with their mourners keeping their memories alive. The Great War spurred memorials and monuments. On the other hand and at the same time, influenza’s casualties fell silently, without fanfare or statues, with memories and celebrations of life clouded and/or lost in time.
Mark Honigsbaum’s chapter ‘Pandemic Exchanges: Narrating the “Spanish” Flu at the Intersection of Science and History’ in ‘Part III: Medical Histories’, examines the influenza pandemic as contextualized within, as he says, ‘exchanges between the biological and medical sciences, and the medical and environmental humanities’ (p. 219). Honigsbaum draws from the sociological construction of other health crisis moments, including H1N1 and AIDS, to reflect on the influenza pandemic’s place in history. In bridging science and the humanities, this chapter helps readers to understand what gets remembered and how.
The final section of the book, ‘Cultural Histories’, goes deeper into collective memory and popular culture. Here, authors look at the preservation of influenza experience in poetry, literature and other constructed narratives. This area has not been given enough attention or value, especially given that so much of what the public know about disease stems from popular culture references, significantly helping to close the gap in the literature. Beiner’s examples of the influenza pandemic incorporated into entertainment media range from an episode of the sitcom Young Sheldon to international films – a breadth unseen in other analyses of disease constructions.
Overall, this book has many strong aspects. At 19 chapters and nearly 400 pages, the text is thorough and multi-faceted. A strength of this text is in its structure. By creating this book as an edited volume, rather than as a single-authored text, the book brings together numerous perspectives, across fields of studies. As mentioned, the topics are not limited to just the time period of 1918–1919, but span across hundreds of years. From the Black Plague to COVID, authors use various examples to explain the constructed remembering and forgetting of influenza. In addition, this book is unique in its voicing of perspectives from marginalized and forgotten individuals and communities. Due largely to the difficultly in acquiring such stories, especially in solely oral societies, so much of the history of epidemics is homogenized perspectives of those in power. This book adds a needed diversity to the existing limited scope of what has been recorded.
As a scholar on the history of epidemics, I do take issue with the title and use of ‘Spanish’ influenza throughout the text. Although the problematic word is in quotation marks, its repetition reinforces myths about 1918 influenza’s origin. At the very least, ‘Spanish’ and the likely origin should have been explicated early in the text. Nevertheless, Pandemic Re-awakenings is a thoughtful, thorough collection of scholarly works that critically contribute to this nearly forgotten pandemic, connecting past to present and future global health crises.