SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UCSD Extension is pleased to announce that celebrated historian John M. Barry, author of the New York Times bestsellers, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, will speak on Tuesday, February 20th, 7:00-8:30 p.m., as part of UCSD’s Revelle Forum at The Neurosciences Institute. Named 2005's outstanding book by the National Academy of Sciences, The Great Influenza tells the compelling and surprisingly little-known story of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50-100 million people worldwide. In his talk Barry will recount the massive social upheavals wreaked by the swift and deadly disease, and the frantic efforts of medical researchers confronting "the first great collision between nature and modern science," while exposing the government's refusal to divert resources from WWI to combat the disease. The evening concludes with a panel discussion on the lessons of the 1918 epidemic and political challenges to present-day disease control.
