Furthermore, Spinney shows that it was far more deadly in some places than others. A conservative measure, quoted in the book, is that 2.5 percent of the world population died from it. Even relative to population size, the toll was very high. Spinney argues that as much as 50 to 100 million died from it. Exactly how many that died is hard to say, since in most parts of the world the reporting system was not well developed at the time. In terms of the number of deaths, the 1918 influenza pandemic was enormous, making it the most deadly disease in mankind. This way, several of the “facts” about the 1918 pandemic, which were based on analysis of a single country, can be put in perspective and sometimes questioned. Instead, it is all the detailed information from all over the world that Spinney brings together into a single book. However, as compelling as these stories are, this is not the strength of the book. There are many speculations about its consequences in the book, for example, that it pushed India to independence, South Africa to apartheid, and Switzerland close to a civil war. In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney, a science journalist, brings together many pieces, big and small, into a story of the disease and how it changed the world. Paul Barry's award-winning book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History, from 2004, then widened the audience. Since then, a huge number of academic papers and books have been written.

One of the scientists that brought attention to it already in 1989 was the historian Alfred Crosby with his book America's Forgotten Pandemic. While the 1918 influenza pandemic was initially of interest mainly to epidemiologists, virologists, and medical historians, now economists, sociologists, psychologists, and many other scientists are analysing its causes and consequences.

Pale rider laura spinney sparknotes