The Dancing Plague

Author: John Waller
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402247370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
A gripping tale of one of history's most bizarre events, and what it reveals about the strange possibilities of human nature In the searing July heat of 1518, Frau Troffea stepped into the streets of Strasbourg and began to dance. Bathed in sweat, she continued to dance. Overcome with exhaustion, she stopped, and then resumed her solitary jig a few hours later. Over the next two months, roughly four hundred people succumbed to the same agonizing compulsion. At its peak, the epidemic claimed the lives of fifteen men, women, and children a day. Possibly 100 people danced to their deaths in one of the most bizarre and terrifying plagues in history. John Waller compellingly evokes the sights, sounds, and aromas; the diseases and hardships; the fervent supernaturalism and the desperate hedonism of the late medieval world. Based on new evidence, he explains why the plague occurred and how it came to an end. In doing so, he sheds light on the strangest capabilities of the human mind and on our own susceptibility to mass hysteria.

A Time to Dance, a Time to Die

Author: John Waller
Publisher: Icon Books Company
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
"In July 1518 a terrifying and mysterious plague struck the medieval city of Strasbourg. Hundreds of men and women danced wildly, day after day, in the punishing summer heat. Their feet blistered and bled, and their limbs ached with fatigue, but they simply could not stop. Throughout August and early September more and more were seized by the same terrible compulsion." "By the time the epidemic subsided, heat and exhaustion had claimed an untold number of lives, leaving thousands bewildered and bereaved, and an enduring enigma for future generations." "This book explains why Strasbourg's dancing plague took place. In doing so, it leads us into a largely vanished world, evoking the sights, sounds, aromas, diseases and hardships, the fervent supernaturalism and the desperate hedonism of the late-medieval world." "At the same time, it offers insights into how people behave when driven beyond the limits of endurance. Not only a historical detective story, A Time to Dance, A Time to Die is also an exploration of the strangest capabilities of the human mind and the extremes to which fear and irrationality can lead us."--BOOK JACKET.

The Dancing Plague

Author: Gareth Brookes
Publisher: SelfMadeHero
ISBN: 9781910593981
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
From "choreomania" to coronavirus: an utterly original graphic novel about a newly urgent subject.

The Dancing Plague

Author: Jeremy Bates
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988091662
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Book Description
From USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author Jeremy Bates comes the latest STAND-ALONE book in the all-new WORLD'S SCARIEST LEGENDS series. For fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Creepypastas. In the sixteenth century hundreds of residents of Strasbourg in Alsace (now France) danced uncontrollably for days on end, many dropping dead from their exertions. Nearly four hundred years later "the dancing plague" has returned, this time afflicting the residents of an idyllic Cape Cod town. For twelve-year-old Ben Graves and his two friends, the inexplicable dancing mania is only the beginning of the horror to come.

The Dance of Death

Author: Hans Holbein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dance of Death
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description

World's Scariest Legends

Author: Jeremy Bates
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988091396
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 516

Book Description
This omnibus edition includes books one and two in the bestselling World's Scariest Legends series: Mosquito Man & The Sleep Experiment.

Get Well Soon

Author: Jennifer Wright
Publisher: Henry Holt
ISBN: 1627797467
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Examines "the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues in human history, as well as stories of the heroic figures who fought to ease their suffering. With her signature mix of ... research and ... storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history's most gripping and deadly outbreaks"--

The Dancing Bees

Author: Tania Munz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602086X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Book Description
Karl von Frisch, in January 1946, deciphered the dancing language of honeybees. Over the previous summer, he had discovered that the bees communicate the distance and direction of food sources by means of the dances they run upon returning from foraging flights. The news of the discovery, which led later to a Nobel Prize, quickly spread across Europe and beyond. The Dancing Bees is a dual biography on the one hand of von Frisch as one of the most innovative and successful scientists of the twentieth century and, on the other, of his honeybees as experimental and especially communicating animals that play a rich role in human culture."

In the Wake of the Plague

Author: Norman F. Cantor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476797749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, taking millions of lives. The author draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death as a gripping, intimate narrative.

After the Plague

Author: T.C. Boyle
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110157383X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T.C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, Boyle speaks of contemporary social issues in a range of emotional keys. The sixteen stories gathered here address everything from air rage to abortion doctors to first love and its consequences. The collection ends with the brilliant title story, a whimsical and imaginative vision of a disease-ravaged Earth. Presented with characteristic wit and intelligence, these stories will delight readers in search of the latest news of the chaotic, disturbing, and achingly beautiful world in which we live. "Boyle's imagination and zeal for storytelling are in top form here."—Publishers Weekly