Pandemics in American Popular Culture: Depicting Disease and Confronting Contagion

Gr 9 Up–Nearly 100 entries arranged in ­alphabetical order treat popular literary and art works with themes from the wide range of pandemics that have directly inspired them. Each essay provides cultural and artistic context, as well as a description of the precipitating pandemic—some imagined, most actual—that authors, playwrights, filmmakers, and others have interpreted for popular audiences. Running two to three pages, with two to four references for additional follow-up, these are thorough; fluent, although necessarily dense; accurately detailed; and highly informative. While AIDS and COVID-19 may be the most familiar to readers, influenza, cholera, and bubonic plague are also well-represented, as are pandemics that have featured in some science fiction as arising from actual historical events, such as nuclear disaster. Author and Professor Emeritus (English and Film Studies) Holte proves even-handed in his presentations. Back matter includes an index.