IN 1910, JACK LONDON SAW COVID COMING

Zocalo ^ | APRIL 14, 2020 | JOE MATHEWS

[exDemMom]

I have always loved Jack London—I grew up in the area where he lived and wrote—but I do not recall ever seeing this work. I will have to look for it. Thank you.

[DugwayDuke]

Lots of folks saw a pandemic coming. But, it’s hard to predict exactly when. It’s difficult to budget for needed supplies when roads need repair. We’ll do better for a few years and then we’ll revert.

BTW, flu pandemics are quite common. You’d be surprised at how many there have been. I believe the first known/remembered one was in Athens about 400 years before Christ by Hipocrates.

[SamAdams76]

Start with “Call Of The Wild”

[Cold Heart]

Thanks for posting this.

Now it’s playtime:)

Chased by bears & dogs. Obviously lost his guns.

Famous for his faith in animals.

And not God.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

The Sea Wolf is one of my favorite books.

[Lurkinanloomin]

I liked Call of the Wild and White Fang.
Never heard of this one, will have to look for it.

[BradyLS]

We may not find a vaccine for Covid-19. But it ain’t the Scarlet Plague, either. We need to re-engage and keep civilization on its feet while science deals with it.

[zeestephen]

Re: Jack London imagined a global epidemic in the year 2013 that killed almost all the people in California

California Death Toll Today - 768

Seasonal influenza is at least twice that high in California.

Open the state.

Go back to work.

Today!

[jocon307]

Great post! I never heard of this book. I’ve read some London, “To Start a Fire” is why I ALWAYS carry matches, even when I was not a smoker.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

In 1910, we were all supposed to be killed by Haley’s Comet.

[yesthatjallen]

The Unparalleled Invasion by Jack London

"Under the influence of Japan, China modernizes and undergoes its own version of the Meiji Reforms in the 1910s. In 1922, China breaks away from Japan and fights a brief war that culminates in the Chinese annexation of the Japanese possessions of Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria. Over the next half century, China's population steadily grows, and eventually migration overwhelms European colonies in Asia. The United States and the other Western powers launch a biological warfare campaign against China, resulting in the total destruction of China's population, the few survivors of the plague being killed out of hand by European and American troops, and China then being colonized by the Western powers. This opens the way to a joyous epoch of "splendid mechanical, intellectual, and art output". In the 1980s, war clouds once more gather between Germany and France, and the story ends with the nations of the world solemnly pledging not to use the same techniques that they had used against China."

[reasonisfaith]

True it is.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for posting. London's biography is amazing. He made a tremendous fortune as a writer and built the 27 room mansion "Wolf House" in Glen Ellen, but it burned before he moved in.

Like most successful authors, he wrote about what he knew (seafaring, Klondike Gold Rush, trips to Hawaii, war correspondent, many others).

He was a strident socialist, but was an ardent capitalist writing to make lots of money.

In 1905 (he was 29 years old), London purchased a 1,000 acres ranch in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, on the eastern slope of Sonoma Mountain. He wrote: "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate."

London and his second wife in Waikiki 1915...

[SkyDancer]

Required reading when I was home schooled.

[thecodont]

Thanks. I wonder if George R. Stewart (Earth Abides) borrowed from London’s story.

[Inyo-Mono]

Very, very interesting!

[Rastus]

Typical. Socialism for thee, but give me mine! Or as Elvis Costello sang, “Was it a millionaire who said ‘imagine no possessions’?”

[Who is John Galt?]

“All things pass,” the professor says.

"The Dude abides..."

;^)

[William Tell]

Here is a link to The Scarlet Plague by Jack London http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21970