Plagues and Peoples

Plagues and Peoples is a book on epidemiological history by historian William H. McNeill published by Anchor Books in 1976. It was a critical and popular success, offering a radical new interpretation of the extraordinary impact of infectious disease on cultures as a means of enemy attack. The book ranges from examining the effects of smallpox in Mexico, the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe.

With the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, a new preface was added to the book.