In this account, a journalist traces the course of the infectious disease known as yellow fever, “vividly [evoking] the Faulkner-meets- Dawn of the Dead horrors” ( The New York Times Book Review ) of this killer virus. Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined. In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country—and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With “arresting tales of heroism,” ( Publishers Weekly ) it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease. "Engrossing...Crosby, a journalist, profiles the outbreak as it rips through Memphis, the city hardest hit. A first-rate medical detective drama...It is good to be reminded of the occasional nobility of the human spirit." - New York Times Book Review "Gripping...highly readable." - Newsweek "...painstaking investigation is important not just for the sweep of detail but for getting things impeccably right. Whether Crosby is writing about...Memphis, the death of a family in a plantation house in Mississippi or the itinerary of Walter Reed in Havana, she provides meticulous documentation to back up the narrative." - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis "Through vivid prose and classic storytelling, Crosby seamlessly blends history and science to tell us how yellow fever haunted the nation--and why, if we're not extremely vigilant, it will haunt us again." - Hampton Sides , author of Hellhound on His Trail and Ghost Soldiers "In her masterful debut, Molly Caldwell Crosby uses rich detail and a stunning cast of characters to bring to vivid life the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1878...this book captivated me from the first line--and it haunted me long after I'd turned the final page." - Candice Millard , author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt I am not from Memphis originally, and after moving here, I began hearing about the tragic yellow fever epidemic and its far reaching consequences.  As a non-Memphian, I was struck by how few people outside of this region had ever heard of the epidemic, which was the greatest urban disaster of its time, with a death toll higher than the Chicago fire and San Francisco earthquake-- combined .  That is what inspired me to tell this story.    I wanted to take the reader into Memphis in 1878, into the city's problems and promise as summer approaches.  While most U.S. cities in both the North and the South suffered through yellow fever outbreaks for two-hundred years, 1878 stands out as the worst--when Memphis became a "city of corpses"--and the last major yellow fever epidemic in the U.S.   Out of the despair of that epidemic came action from the federal government to finally find the cause of these debilitating outbreaks.  It was twenty years in the making, and it led to one of our greatest successes in medical history--Walter Reed's work in Cuba that finally proved mosquitoes, not "miasma" or filth, brought on a yellow fever season.  In the end, his work led to later development of a vaccine--the same one still in use today.  But, like the work of countless doctors and nurses in Memphis, it came at a great price.  It has been said that no other disease killed so many of the doctors, nurses and scientists trying to study it.  That is what struck me most when writing the book and still stays with me today--the many people, ordinary citizens and doctors alike, in Memphis, Cuba and elsewhere, who literally gave their lives in the fight against this disease. Molly Caldwell Crosby is the national bestselling author of Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries and The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History , which has been nominated for several awards. Crosby holds a master's degree in nonfiction and science writing from Johns Hopkins University and previously worked for National Geographic magazine. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek , Health , and USA Today , among others.