The work of William McNeill “Plague and People” is an attempt to explain the past through a sort of biological means. It is in some way an explanation of historical event by taking a look at the influence of nature. McNeill is a naturalist and that he considers the environment as a big factor in history. It’s a naturalistic approach to the study of history. If we examine closely the work of McNeill, we might be able to get the idea that human beings and the history of humans is in a way related to the environment and that we play a role. There is a sort of ecological niche that we are to find. Humans play a link between environments. There is a continuum or a series of things that humans should play his part so as not to break the series. From this, we will find that even the littlest of the organisms like the parasites play a role. These parasites that live off another organism are related to humans. This relationship is a balance between the micro and macro parasitism that humans tend to work in between. Let us take a look between the so-called macro and micro parasitism
Micro parasitism according to McNeill (1998) is an organism that is a parasite on us. This might include organisms that are inside us feeding on the nutrients that we are taking in. Macro parasitism on the other hand is when we talk about parasitism in a very large scale. In history, it might mean the physical or feeding in some way like abuse of authority to gain more. That is parasitism. But there should always be an equilibrium or balance. Parasites who have had enough that the host is destroyed or can no longer provide would mean destruction or even death. The parasite then will die off. McNeill means this in history to be that sort of abuse that can destroy a society. This became an epidemic because it came to a point that the host is destroyed. On the other hand, if it is just stable we call it endemic.
Humans can be considered the greatest parasite. We have the knowledge that we can think of ways to destroy and hunt even the fiercest creatures that thrive on earth. From the beginning man has been a threat to every species that ever existed. Even to their kind. Man has been ruling since the beginning and it has destroyed quite a number of species along with it are the parasites that live within those species. But what about those parasites that can live on those that humans need for survival and thus humans took care off? We destroyed a great number of small animals to do farming and in so doing killing some plants and animals that once live in the unplowed land.
The growth of population has a lot to do with trying to balance the ecosystem. There are three things that would result from the growth. First is are diseases because the population expands and there are more hosts; second would be war due to conflicts and third would have to be famine because the society was able to consume too much to the point that the ecosystem can no longer provide nourishment. McNeill sees the relationship between these diseases, famine and war to the society. History has given us quite a number of examples of societies that disintegrated because of disease, famine and war. From these, we can say that a society can likely be affected by whatever is happening to the ecosystem. A certain disease can kill off an entire population. Trade and foreign relations of the ancient times had introduced to a certain place a disease unknowingly. What we learned from this epidemic is that human beings tend to adapt to it and battle it out. The method of quarantine would have to be the simplest way that humans battle out the spread of a disease. The advent of these diseases also caused much attention to religion and some belief. We find mystical religious movements that boast of healing.
What McNeill is trying to say is that if there is a sort of an unbalance in the society, it dies off. It can be due to the relationship between the players of the people of the community or a naturalistic approach to it; something might have happened that human beings were not able to react to it. The advent of the diseases upon a shore may sometime affect the delicate balance. Humans are sometimes caught in the middle of an epidemic that no matter how much we try to console it, we are caught by the fact that it is not in our hands anymore. A disease (viral or bacterial) that kills its victims before they can spread it to others tends to flare up and then die out, like a fire running out of fuel. A more resilient disease would establish an equilibrium, its victims living well beyond infection to further spread the disease. This function of the evolutionary process selects against quick lethality, with the most immediately fatal diseases being the most short-lived. Thus both diseases and populations tend to evolve towards an equilibrium in which the common diseases are non-symptomatic, mild, or manageably chronic. When a population that has been relatively isolated is exposed to new diseases, it has no inborn resistance to the new diseases (the population is "biologically naïve"); this body of people succumbs at a much higher rate, resulting in what is known as a "virgin soil" epidemic.
Civilizations thrive and flourish because of this balance. Some may die off because of parasitism within themselves or as a relationship to other beings. McNeill sees the natural method of things that influence history. I might agree with him. Humans have always been in complete struggle of controlling the environment but there are some things that he just might not be able to over turn. History is indeed a balance between all the factors of the society and there should be a relationship established amongst them.
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Sources:
McNeill, W.H. (1998). Plagues and peoples. New York: Anchor Books.
Staloff, Darren (2000) “The search for a meaningful past,philosophies,theories, and
interpretation of human history”. New York: The Teaching Company
population history. Retrieved October 20, 2008 from http://www.wikipedia.com/population
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