Laura Spinney

Comment un virus H1N1, dont la source et le nom demeurent troubles, a-t-il pu faire plus de ravages encore que la Peste noire du XIVe siècle ? À l’heure du 100e anniversaire de la pandémie de grippe

Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu the twentieth century s greatest killer and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid 19 pandemic Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past Guardian With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach the Spanish flu of 1918 1920 was the greatest human disaster not only of the twentieth century but possibly in all of recorded history And yet in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I In Pale Rider Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic tracing it from Alaska to Brazil from Persia to Spain and from South Africa to Odessa She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test Laura Spinney demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant if not more so as two world wars in shaping the modern world in disrupting and often permanently altering global politics race relations family structures and thinking across medicine religion and the arts Weaves together global history and medic

La llamada «gripe española» de 1918, que surgió en realidad entre los soldados norteamericanos que luchaban en Francia durante la primera guerra mundial, fue, con sus de 50 a 100 millones de muertos,

The chilling, ghostly account of a doctor who is determined to find light in a lifeless body. Patient DL lies motionless in a small room at the end of a hospital corridor. She has suffered massive damage to her brain, and its not clear whether she can see or hear the world around her. When Sarah Newman, the narrator of this ghostly tale, is charged with finding a spark of light in her lifeless body, she is drawn into a drama which extends far beyond the hospital walls. What accident befell DL to cause her such massive brain damage? Why does her family behave in such unsettling and perplexing ways? Why is DLs estranged husband visiting the patient after hours, in the dead of night? And what is troubling the narrator herself, who seems to carry a burden from her past? As the tension builds and the strange case of Patient DL becomes known to the outside world, Sarah Newman finds herself at the heart of a personal and an ethical dilemma. The Quick is the thrilling account of an obsession, charged throughout with a sense of the mystery of consciousness.

Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu - the twentieth centurys greatest killer and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid-19 pandemic.Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story... Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the pastGuardian With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 19181920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I. In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test. Laura Spinney demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant if not more so as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.Weaves together global history and medical science to great effect ... Riveting. Sunday Times

*A GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, PROSPECT AND WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2025*The fascinating story of ancient words new revelations await The GuardianA magisterial feat New Scientist________________________________One ancient language transformed our world. This is its story.Star. Stjarna. Stare. Thousands of miles apart, people look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.Listen to these English, Icelandic and Iranic words and you can hear echoes of one of the most extraordinary journeys in humanitys past. All three of these languages and hundreds more share a single ancient ancestor.Five millennia ago, in a mysterious Big Bang of its own, this proto tongue exploded, forming new worlds as it spread east and west. Today, nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. How did this happen?In Proto, acclaimed journalist Laura Spinney sets off to find out. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the Silk Roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings the ancient peoples who spread these tongues far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists racing to recover this lost world. What they have discovered has vital lessons for our modern age, as people and their languages are on the move again.Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.

Un viaje fascinante a los orígenes del lenguaje humano: cómo una lengua ancestral moldeó como nos comunicamos en la actualidad.Al final de la última glaciación, en las tierras que rodean el mar Negro, nacio una lengua destinada a cambiar el mundo. Aquel idioma ancestral, que hoy conocemos como protoindoeuropeo, se expandio con rapidez, fragmentandose a medida que sus hablantes migraban. De el descienden las lenguas que hoy se hablan en buena parte de Europa y Asia, y que conectan tradiciones culturales tan diversas como el Rig Veda y La divina comedia o la poesia de Rumi. Hoy, las lenguas indoeuropeas conforman la familia linguistica mas extendida del mundo. ¿Como ocurrio esta extraordinaria expansion?Durante siglos, el rastro de esa lengua originaria permanecio oculto, enterrado bajo tumulos en las estepas de Eurasia o dormido en los genes de nuestros antepasados. Solo en las ultimas decadas, gracias a los avances de la linguistica, la arqueologia y la genetica, ha sido posible reconstruir su historia y la de los pueblos que la llevaron consigo.En Lengua madre, Laura Spinney, autora del superventas El jinete palido, recorre continentes y milenios para seguir la odisea indoeuropea. A traves de estepas, montañas y antiguas rutas comerciales, sigue las huellas de quienes propagaron estas lenguas y acompaña a los cientificos que hoy trabajan para recuperar esas voces perdidas. El resultado es una historia de la humanidad contada desde el hilo invisible del lenguaje, que ilumina nuestro pasado y dialoga con un presente en el que pueblos y lenguas vuelven a estar en movimiento.

La llamada «gripe española» de 1918, que surgió en realidad entre los soldados norteamericanos que luchaban en Francia durante la primera guerra mundial, fue, con sus de 50 a 100 millones de muertos,

La llamada «gripe española» de 1918, que surgió en realidad entre los soldados norteamericanos que luchaban en Francia durante la primera guerra mundial, fue, con sus de 50 a 100 millones de muertos,

Un viaje fascinante a los orígenes del lenguaje humano: cómo una lengua ancestral moldeó como nos comunicamos en la actualidad. Al final de la última glaciación, en las tierras que rodean el mar Negr

The epic tale of how one ancient language went global and the scientific quest to trace it back to its roots from the celebrated author of Pale RiderAs the planet emerged from the last ice age a language was born between Europe and Asia by the Black Sea This ancient tongue which we call Proto Indo European soon exploded out of its cradle changing and fragmenting as it went until its offspring were spoken from Scotland to China Today those descendants constitute the world s largest language family the thread that connects disparate cultures Dante s Inferno to the Rig Veda The Lord of the Rings to the love poetry of Rumi Indo European languages are spoken by nearly half of humanity How did this happen Laura Spinney set out to answer that question retracing the Indo European odyssey across continents and millennia With her we travel the length of the steppe navigating the Caucasus the silk roads and the Hindu Kush We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks Amazon warriors and lion kings the ancient peoples who spread these languages far and wide In the present Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve those lost languages the linguists archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed this ancient diaspora What the