Black Death at the Golden Gate
The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
4 June 2019
Description
A spine-chilling saga of virulent racism, human folly and the ultimate triumph of scientific progress.
The death of a Chinese immigrant, Wong Chut King, in San Francisco in 1900 would have been unremarkable if a swollen black lymph node—a sign of bubonic plague—hadn’t been noticed on his groin. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials quarantined Chinatown. If the disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicentre of an outbreak that had claimed ten million lives worldwide. To local press, railway barons and officials, such a possibility was inconceivable—or inconvenient. As they proceeded to obscure the threat, it fell to health official Rupert Blue to save the city and America from a gruesome fate.
In the tradition of Erik Larson and Steven Johnson, best-selling author David K. Randall spins a spellbinding account of Blue’s race to understand the disease and contain its spread.
Reviews
"David K. Randall has created a meticulously researched history that unfolds like a thriller. I raced through this book in two days (horribly, the span of time it took bubonic plague to fell a victim). The unlikely heroes—bacteriologists and public health officers with long, flowing beards—battle villains most vile: racism, rotten politics, disregard for science, and Yersinia pestis. Black Death at the Golden Gate is both a page-turner and a cautionary tale: Those villains still lurk." — Mary Roach
"Randall’s account is pacy and gripping. And his examination of the conflicts, prejudices and priorities involved make for sober reading in a world where Ebola clinics are being torched and anti-vaccination movements threaten a resurgence in diseases such as measles." — Nature
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