Black Death II

Researching the Black Death was fascinating especially since it caused so many changes that it wasn't possible to cover them all in the essay I wrote; *g* I thought I'd wait to publish it until I got the mark back. I love doing research to try and delve in and connect all the pieces together from different sources. It's always frustrating to read something and realize that the only research they've done is to books published by other historians and they've completely ignored the primary sources as well as failed to contribute anything new to the argument - which is perhaps understandable in a greatly restricted word limit but not when they're able to publish a whole book on the subject! The seperate and perhaps more intense historiographical deabate revolves around what exactly the Black Death was and if it still remains as an organism i.e. is it accurate to describe it as bubonic plague [which is a distinct bacillus responsible for the nineteenth century plague in India and China]. I still think Samuel Cohn Jr. is one of the most comprehensive and wel researched writers on the subject and highly recommend his book:
Cohn, Samuel K., The Black Death transformed: disease and culture in early Renaissance Europe, London, 2002.