The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (2003)

I'm a native Californian. From the time I was young, I had a keen interest in history. The experience of Chinese immigrants was largely glossed over in school. The emphasis was, "Chinese built the railroad. A lot of them lived in San Francisco. They dealt with racism and laws prevented immigration for many years, and there weren't many Chinese women. But things are better now!"

The Barbary Plague should be required reading for any Californian. Heck, any American. This book made me so angry at times, and so sad, but it also educated me. I read it for research for my novel, and while I did get relevant data for that purpose, I came out with a whole lot more.

When the plague first settled into San Francisco in 1900, it struck Chinatown first. And almost no one cared. The federal government sent in Quarantine Officer Dr. Joseph Kinyuon. The whites scorned the plague as being an Asiatic disease, something that could only infect inferior peoples; the politicians, from the corrupt city mayor all the way to the governor of California, undermined the investigation because they only saw the potential millions lost due to quarantines and trade blockades. Some went so far as to accuse Kinyuon of planting plague evidence for the sake of his career.

The Chinese themselves thwarted medical officers at every turn. They didn't trust white doctors--with reason--and were horrified at the blasphemy of autopsies and cremation. When Kinyuon was shoved from the city, Dr. Rupert Blue came in and fought tooth and nail to stop the epidemic--and was only taken seriously when whites began to die. It was Blue who read theories from overseas and realized the plague spread by fleas on rats, and he orchestrated a massive campaign to slaughter rats and save the city from devastation. His efforts became all the more vital after the 1906 earthquake, when the ruins and refugee camps created a rodent paradise.

It's nonfiction that makes for a compelling read, as it delves into the complexities of racism, corrupt politics, and the nascent United States medical program. ( )

Rather a disappointment. Like many others here, I was fascinated by the subject matter. An epidemic of the bubonic plague in San Francisco, right at the beginning of the 20th century? Who knew? That sounds like good stuff! But the writing didn't live up to the story. I didn't notice the flowery language that others complained of, but what bugged me what how repetitive the writing was. Some dude got sick, he had buboes, they tried to cover it up, he died, sure enough, an autopsy confirmed plague, then maybe another dude or two got sick, maybe not, then the disease went into hiding, and we waited a couple more months to see what would happen. Then what happened was a repeat, just like before. I don't doubt that this was more or less what happened, but surely there was another way to tell the story.

Still, some fascinating stuff and I'm glad I read it. Now I want to follow it up with a better story about the plague. ( )

I nearly stopped reading this book during the prologue, but I gave it another ten pages before I gave up. It was horrendously written. The sentence that made me throw in the towel was "Angel Island was his castle and San Francisco Bay was his moat". What I read was one metaphor after another, with no substance whatsoever. ( )