How The Black Death Created The Modern World

October 1347.

Twelve ships dock in Sicily. Most of the sailors are already dead.

Within three years, half of Europe would be gone. But from that catastrophe came everything: capitalism, individual rights, the printing press, the age of exploration, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment—the very idea that tomorrow can be better than yesterday.

You and I are living in a world the plague created. We just don't know it.

This is Episode 1 of "How Plagues Transform Humanity"—a new series exploring how pandemics shaped the modern world.

TIMESTAMPS:0:00 - The Ships Arrive2:15 - The World That Was Stuck5:30 - Death Arrives9:45 - Feudalism Collapses12:30 - The Church Cracks14:20 - Innovation at Gunpoint18:00 - Why Europe and Not China?21:30 - The World It Made

COMING NEXT:

• Episode 2: The Antonine Plague - How Disease Broke Rome
• Episode 3: The Spanish Flu - 50 Million Dead and the Roaring Twenties
• Episode 4: COVID and the Brave New World

CONNECT:

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SOURCES:

Paul Schmelzing, "Eight Centuries of Global Real Rates" (Bank of England, 2020)

Robert Allen, "The Great Divergence" David Herlihy, "The Black Death and the Transformation of the West"

#BlackDeath #History #Economics #Capitalism #MedievalHistory