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Patrick Boucheron Publishes 'Peste noire,' Recasting the Black Death

His thesis reads the pandemic as a revealer of power whose effects unfolded over the long run.

Overview

  • The Seuil volume, drawn from his Collège de France course, is released in France on January 30 alongside fresh coverage in Télérama and an interview in L’Humanité.
  • The book synthesizes origins, transmission and consequences to argue for a longue durée reading that rejects a sudden “world after.”
  • Historians’ estimates cited in the work put European mortality at roughly 60–65% between 1347 and 1352.
  • Reporting highlights the 1347 entry via Genoese galleys to Marseille and the 1894 identification of Yersinia pestis by Alexandre Yersin in Hong Kong.
  • Documentary traces include early policy responses such as 1349 limits on wage increases and local measures like Orvieto’s pricing of funeral wax.