Flu : The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It

With its broad range of current and bestselling nonfiction titles -- including biography, history, essays, humor, politics, popular science and memoirs -- this series fills the need for books that appeal to men. Occasionally there are also travel, self-help, and health guides geared to today's mature reader.An estimated forty million people died in 1918 during the Great Flu Epidemic, including more American soldiers than were killed in battle in World War I. If such a plague returned today, an estimated 1.5 million people would die. Now Gina Kolata unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of an adventure story, tracking the race to recover the live pathogen, probing the fear that has impelled government policy, and addressing the prospects for a recurrence.