Ray Howard has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 1 author. The most-rated is Umma.
Typhoid Mary
Summary
Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly, they’ve often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents - unseen bacteria and viruses - which afflicted them, and thus the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces. Even when advances in knowledge posited natural causes for epidemics and pandemics, medicine struggled to deal with them, and for hundreds of years, religion continued to work hand-in-hand with medicine. Outbreaks of disease, much like wars, inevitably produce a series of public figures who serve as emblematic heroes or villains of the era and event. In the case of Mary Mallon, now known around the world as “Typhoid Mary", only a few deaths and a relatively small group of infections actually occurred before she was arrested. That her small but deadly outbreak incited such a firestorm among New York’s health agencies was certainly driven by the fact that the “ghetto disease” had suddenly appeared in New York City’s wealthy neighborhoods. A further difficulty lay in the late discovery of a few individuals who were not susceptible to the disease of typhoid itself, but who were nevertheless carriers. Invisible but contagious, these rare cases spread the pathogen both prolifically and unwittingly. As a natural social conflict rose, public debate came to the fore over the civil rights of those apprehended for carrying major diseases. The phenomenon of a carrier immune to typhoid and other afflictions had been noted by the early 19th century and can be found in the journals of obscure researchers. However, even prominent medical practitioners were generally unaware of ever having observed such an individual, and the chances are slim that an uneducated domestic servant from a rural county in Ireland would encounter the research or possess the knowledge with which to identify the carrier. In fact, in a state of disbelief maintained throughout her adult life, Mallon defied the medical community’s depiction of her as infected at all. Originating in a culture where disease was still believed to be the result of noxious vapors, and where one was not sick unless she appeared so, Mallon viewed the entire investigation as pure persecution. Along the way, she did herself little good with an aggressive, explosive temper and a general belligerence toward any idea of cooperation with medical personnel whom she took to be frauds. As a carrier of any sort, Mallon would never have been identified at all had it not been for the detailed and relentless work of an agent working in conjunction with the New York City Health Department. For Mallon, the outcome was tragic at the hands of a city government that had no idea what to do with her. Mallon had in the beginning not knowingly committed a crime, but she spent nearly three decades incarcerated in one of the bleakest holding pens in New York City’s history. As with all past outbreaks in developed societies, cultural, religious, gender, and economic lines were drawn between the wealthiest and poorest of the population, and in the minds of many, the disease was connected to a moral standard the poor could not possibly uphold. Typhoid Mary: The Notorious Life and Legacy of the Cook Who Caused a Typhoid Outbreak in New York chronicles the life and work of Mary Mallon, and why she remains so famous today.
©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors
Bass Reeves
Summary
“My mom always said she heard that Bass was so tough he could spit on a brick and bust it in two!” (attributed to Willabelle Shultz, granddaughter of Reeves' colleague) Exploration of the early American West, beginning with Lewis and Clark’s transcontinental trek at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, was not accomplished by standing armies, the era’s new steam train technology, or by way of land grabs. These came later, but not until pathways known only to a few of the land’s indigenous people were discovered, carved out, and charted in an area stretching from the eastern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and the present-day borders of Mexico and Canada. Even the great survey parties, such as Colonel William Powell’s exploration of the Colorado River, came decades later. The first views of the West’s enormity by White Americans were seen by individuals of an entirely different personality, in an era that could only exist apart from its home civilization. Explorers, soldiers, and settlers of African American heritage comprise an unfamiliar story to most students of American history. However, in the push westward, they were present in sufficient enough numbers to exert great influence on the nation’s development. Among the earliest accounts is that of Isabel de Olvera, who settled in New Mexico around the year of 1600, and it is estimated that by 1750, 25 percent of Albuquerque’s population shared discernible African ancestry. York, the well-known servant of Lewis and Clark, accompanied the legendary expedition under the auspices of the Jefferson administration, and Edward Rose traveled up the Missouri River in the same era. Within just a few years, Pio Pico became the governor of California, and George Bush became one of the first Black men to travel the Oregon Trail, opening that route to a flood of settlers over a 10-year period. In parallel with these individuals came a number of Black frontiersmen who participated in the exploration of the Western terrain, said to have numbered in the dozens. Seldom heard but notable names of Black figures in the West include trick rodeo rider Jesse Stahl, stunt rider and castle rustler Ned Huddleston, and Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy US Marshal. Isom Dart and Willie Bill Pickett also garnered some fame in the era. Furthermore, given the segregated nature of society, it was all the more shocking that Reeves reached such a position in law enforcement. The region was known for infamous outlaws and gangs, but numerous icons in the form of tin star-bearing, gun-toting lawmen emerged, sworn to round up these anarchic and violent desperadoes and bring them to justice, dead or alive. Some of them are still well-known today, such as Wyatt Earp and Sheriff Pat Garrett, a former cowboy, bartender, and customs agent best known for his slaying of Billy the Kid. Bill Tilghman, a prolific peace officer and member of the Three Guardsmen, along with Chris Madsen and Heck Thomas, cemented his place in history when he apprehended the elusive bandit outlaw Bill Doolin, a one-time member of the Dalton Gang and later head of the Wild Bunch. Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas himself was hailed as one of the most accomplished lawmen of the West in his own right, squaring off with and playing a hand in the arrests of dozens of marauders and murderers, including several members of the Sam Bass Gang, as well as Jim and Pink Lee of the notorious Lee Gang. Despite his hulking six foot, two inches and 200-lb frame, the famously indomitable Bass Reeves was a man of mystery.
©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors
The English Sweating Sickness
Summary
Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly, they’ve often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents - unseen bacteria and viruses - which afflicted them, and thus, the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces. Even when advances in knowledge posited natural causes for epidemics and pandemics, medicine struggled to deal with them, and for hundreds of years, religion continued to work hand-in-hand with medicine. It was only in the mid-19th century that scientists established a definitive link between viruses and bacteria and disease, and this allowed the development of vaccines to prevent the spread of killers such as smallpox, typhus, and diphtheria. In the early 20th century, the development of antibiotics helped immensely, but as the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the recent coronavirus outbreak demonstrated, people have not succeeded in conquering all infectious diseases. In fact, it was not until World War II that most of the pestilences that have afflicted people in the past could be effectively prevented, but the fear of contagion remains strong. The plague, for all its horrors, became a known quantity that moved through a predictable progression, so by the 15th century, citizens learned to go on with their lives, resigned to the fact that these curses seemed inescapable. However, in the mid-15th century, a new “febrile” disease of an entirely unknown cause struck again in Britain in a series of erratically paced and lethal outbreaks between 1485 and 1551. Confined almost entirely to England, the new and unfamiliar wave of illness paled before the statistical destruction caused by the Black Death. However, what came to be known as the “English sweating sickness” reappeared through the decades in a stunning display of unpredictable timing and terrifying symptoms. The anxiety produced by its rapid and grim emergence rivaled that of the previous continental scourge. Surviving the disease offered no defense against reinfection, and what began as mild discomfort in the morning often left a victim dead by nightfall. The new plague’s arrival was indeed poorly timed for a country still recovering from the Black Death. To worsen the burden, respiratory diseases already stalked various communities throughout the British Isles, and a syphilis epidemic was widespread. Typhus and malaria were well known to larger Britain. All that the citizens of England knew was that the new peril was different, lacking the rash of typhus or the boils of bubonic plague, cold comfort at best. The new “sweating sickness” was not preying on Britain - only England. In an uncustomary manner, the sweating sickness chose the aristocracy for its primary target, rather than the usual assault on the poor. Worse for the wealthy and ruling class, including the royals, the sweating sickness uncharacteristically infiltrated the ranks of young men aspiring to high places in society and government. In turn, few men and women in their households were spared. The poor suffered as well, but as with the plague, they were mandated to continue their daily regimens in the absence of any alternative. For the well-to-do, the disease struck at the heart of England’s existence, personal and economical, with a predilection for those being groomed for state leadership or royal positions
©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors
Umma
Summary
When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament. The nascent field of Near Eastern studies had unraveled the enigma of the Akkadian language that was widely used throughout the region in ancient times, but the discovery of the Sumerian tablets brought to light the existence of the Sumerian culture, which was the oldest of all the Mesopotamian cultures. Although the Sumerians continue to get second or even third billing compared to the Babylonians and Assyrians, perhaps because they never built an empire as great as the Assyrians or established a city as enduring and great as Babylon, they were the people who provided the template of civilization that all later Mesopotamians built upon. The Sumerians are credited with being the first people to invent writing, libraries, cities, and schools in Mesopotamia (Ziskind 1972, 34), and many would argue that they were the first people to create and do those things anywhere in world. There were many great cities in the ancient Near East that influenced the course of history. Babylon and Jerusalem are two of the better known, but Nineveh, Damascus, Ur, Uruk, Memphis, Thebes, and Sidon were just a few of the great cities where science and literature were created, theologies proposed, and empires born. There are numerous reasons why these cities became prominent, many of which were related to the fortuitous circumstances of environment and politics, but for every one of the great cities, there were many more that flourished and then had their prestige overshadowed by the growth of their larger neighbors. These cities often played important roles in the historical processes of the region for a time, but due to numerous circumstances, their influence proved to be ephemeral. One of the most interesting of these early ephemeral cities was Umma. Located in the southern region of Mesopotamia known as Sumer, Umma became a prominent Sumerian city in the early third millennium BCE, and while Uruk was the most important Sumerian city during that era, Umma was close behind in influence and power and for a time, seemed poised to become the most important place in Sumer. A powerful dynasty arose in Umma that expanded its influence across southern Mesopotamia, uniting the Sumerian cities under one government, but the central position that Umma enjoyed proved to be temporary because Semitic conquerors from the north forced Umma and the other cities to accept their rule. Umma continued to exist and even prosper, and it eventually became a somewhat important city again under the Neo-Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur in the late third millennium BCE It was not until the sixth century BCE that Umma went unmentioned in the historical record during the Neo-Babylonian Period. By then, the city was a shadow of its former self, but some of the earliest known Mesopotamian historiographical inscriptions were recorded in Umma, the god of its city became an important deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon, and its merchants became well-known for introducing a type of silver standard for trade. Thus, even as Umma was forgotten even as far back as ancient times, it continues to fascinate modern historians and archaeologists.
©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors