About the book: year / A fascinating story about how the main transformations in history - from the appearance of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism - were shaped not by people, but by microbes . In the conventional view of progress, humans prospered through their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revealing book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism exaggerates the role we play in social and political change. On the contrary, it is the humble microbes that win wars and bring down empires. Drawing on cutting-edge research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, examining eight major infectious disease outbreaks that shaped the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were the protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the rise of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the rise of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence after a series of deadly pandemics swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick transformed a tiny sect into one of the world's major religions. By placing disease at the center of his vast human history, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past and urges us to view the current moment as another inflection point, driven by disease, that will change the course of history. Provocative and insightful, Pathogenesis changes the way we think about human history. Jonathan Kennedy teaches politics and global health at Queen Mary University of London. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge.