After I published my last post on Coronavirus and Our Age of Discord, I’ve been looking through various lists of major epidemics in world history, both on resources such as Wikipedia and in academic articles. I know that there is a strong (although not perfect) association between crisis periods and disease outbreaks (see my 2008 article). The question is, how strong is this correlation?
Below is a table that I put together, based on the data I found. It is not a definitive test of the hypothesis that major epidemics tend to strike during Ages of Discord. The comparison is not systematic enough, it’s too qualitative, and there is a definite Eurocentric bias (or, at least, a bias towards western Eurasia). Still, this is my blog, not an academic article that requires much higher rigor (and we will do a proper job when we complete building the Seshat Crisis Database).
In any case, here’s what I came up with so far. Comments are welcome!
| Crisis Period | Where | Epidemics and pandemics |
| Late Bronze Age Collapse (XII–XI c. BCE) | Eastern Mediterranean and Near East | The plagues of Egypt
The plague among Achaeans at Troy Crete depopulated by the plague The Philistine Plague Pestilence in Israel and Judah |
| Peloponnessian War (V c. BCE) |
Eastern and Central Mediterranean | The Plague of Athens
Recurrent pestilence in Rome |
| The Crisis of the Roman Principate (II–III c) |
Roman Empire | Antonine Plagues
The Plague of Cyprian |
| The Late Antiquity Crisis (VI c) | Eastern Roman Empire | Justinianic Plague (the First Plague Pandemic) |
| The Fall of the Umayyad Caliphate (VIII c)
The turbulent Nara Period (VIII c) |
The Middle East and the Mediterranean
Japan |
Second wave of Justinianic plagues (peak in 746-747)
The Japanese smallpox epidemic of 735–737 |
| The Crisis of the XIV c. | Afro-Eurasia | The Black Death (the Second Plague Pandemic) |
| The General Crisis of the XVII c. | World | Second wave of the Black Death (including the Great Plagues of London and Vienna)
The Columbian Exchange: depopulation of the Americas; syphilis epidemic in Europe |
| The Age of Revolutions (1789–1919: the “long” XIX c.) | World | Cholera pandemics
The Third Plague Pandemic The Spanish Flu |
The plague of the Philistines at Ashdod. Oil painting by Pie Wellcome
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