Maybe rats didn't spread the Black Death after all, new evidence suggests
Recent research suggests rats may not have played the critical role in keeping plague going in Europe.
Samuel Cohn
Professor of History, University of Glasgow
From the late 1990s, I have published and taught on two broad themes: popular insurrection in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and the history of plague and other diseases from antiquity to the present. My most recent book is Epidemics: Hate & Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS (Oxford University Press, 2018). Previous books include Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200-1425 (Harvard University Press, 2006); and Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance (Oxford University Press, 2010). I am presently completing Popular Protest and Ideals of Democracy in Late Renaissance Italy, which challenges current notions in political science that democracies so easily die.
I am currently an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
