Laura Spinney

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age |1971}}

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| fields = Spanish flu
Pandemics

| workplaces = Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

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| alma_mater = Durham University (BSc)

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| website = {{URL|https://www.lauraspinney.com}}

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}}Laura Spinney (born August 1971) is a British science journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer whose 2017 book Pale Rider is an account of the 1918 influenza pandemic.{{cite news

| last = DeGroot

| first = Gerard

| title = Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney

| website = The Times

| date = 20 May 2017

| url = https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/pale-rider-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-and-how-it-changed-the-world-by-laura-spinney-snd96x8hn

| access-date = 21 October 2018

}} {{subscription required}}

Education

Spinney graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Sciences from Durham University in 1993.{{cite journal |title=Books and Authors |journal=Durham First |date=Spring 2002 |issue=15 |page=31}}{{cite journal |last1= Rego Barry|first1=Rebecca |title= Exhuming the Flu |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/exhuming-the-flu |journal=Distillations |publisher= Science History Institute |date=13 November 2018|volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=40–43 |accessdate=6 February 2020 }}

Career

Spinney has written for Nature,{{cite journal|last1=Spinney|first1=Laura|title=How pandemics shape social evolution|journal=Nature|volume=574|issue=7778|year=2019|pages=324–326|issn=0028-0836|doi=10.1038/d41586-019-03048-8|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last1=Spinney|first1=Laura|title=Panicking about societal collapse? Plunder the bookshelves|journal=Nature|volume=578|issue=7795|year=2020|pages=355–357|issn=0028-0836|doi=10.1038/d41586-020-00436-3|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last1=Spinney|first1=Laura|title=Q&A: Maestro of the swarm|journal=Nature|volume=481|issue=7380|year=2012|pages=144–144|issn=0028-0836|doi=10.1038/481144a|doi-access=free}} National Geographic, The Economist, New Scientist, and The Guardian.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/new-virus-china-covid-19-food-markets|title=It takes a whole world to create a new virus, not just China | Laura Spinney|first=Laura|last=Spinney|date=25 March 2020|via=www.theguardian.com}} She is the author of two novels, The Doctor and The Quick, and a collection of oral history from a central European city entitled Rue Centrale.

In 2017 she published Pale Rider, an account of the 1918 flu pandemic,{{cite web

| last = Seymour

| first = Miranda

| title = Pale Rider review – painful lessons of the flu pandemic

| website = The Guardian

| date = 4 June 2017

| url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/04/pale-rider-laura-spinney-spanish-flu-review-absorbing-study

| access-date = 21 October 2018

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181013132048/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/04/pale-rider-laura-spinney-spanish-flu-review-absorbing-study

| archive-date = 13 October 2018

| url-status = live

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}}{{cite web

| title = The deadliest disease in history

| website = economist.com

| date = 25 May 2017

| url = https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/05/25/the-deadliest-disease-in-history

| access-date = 21 October 2018

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180623010240/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/05/25/the-deadliest-disease-in-history

| archive-date = 23 June 2018

| url-status = live

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}} published by Jonathan Cape who acquired the global rights in an auction in 2015.{{cite web

| last = Farrington

| first = Joshua

| title = Cape wins auction for Spanish Flu study

| publisher = The Bookseller

| website = thebookseller.com

| date = 17 June 2015

| url = https://www.thebookseller.com/news/cape-wins-auction-spanish-fu-study

| access-date = 21 October 2018

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180623005132/https://www.thebookseller.com/news/cape-wins-auction-spanish-fu-study

| archive-date = 23 June 2018

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}}

Spinney indicates that the global pandemic was the biggest disaster of the 20th century, exceeding the death tolls of both World War I (17 million) and World War II (60 million dead). Its full scope has only been recognised in the 21st century as researchers have examined old records, determining that 1 in 3 people became ill and between 1 in 10 and 1 in 5 died. At the time illiteracy was common, germ theory relatively new, antibiotics had not been discovered, and long-distance communication was often limited.

The first clearly identified and documented case was Albert Gitchell, a U.S. Army cook who reported in sick at Camp Funston in Kansas on 4 March 1918. Three distinct waves of disease outbreak occurred worldwide: in spring 1918, in late summer and autumn, and from later winter 1918 to early 1919. Between the first and second waves, the virus mutated and became more deadly in humans. The death toll in countries like China and India was particularly poorly documented. Spinney vividly describes conditions from all over the globe, from Rio de Janeiro to Russia.

Spinney's English translation of Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz's novel Derborence was published in 2018.{{cite web

| title = Derborence – Where the devils came down

| website = Skomlin

| date = 2 October 2018

| url = https://www.skomlin.com/dd-product/derborence-where-the-devils-came-down/

| access-date = 21 October 2018

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181013213119/https://www.skomlin.com/dd-product/derborence-where-the-devils-came-down/

| archive-date = 13 October 2018

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}} In 2019 she spent two months as a journalist-in-residence at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.{{cite web

| title = Journalists-in-Residence

| website = mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

| url = https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/journalists-in-residence

| access-date = 21 October 2018

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181013172247/https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/journalists-in-residence

| archive-date = 13 October 2018

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}}

Bibliography

= Books =

The DoctorThe Doctor. Methuen, London, 2001. {{ISBN|0413754707}}
The QuickThe Quick. Fourth Estate, London, 2007. {{ISBN|9780007240500}}
Rue CentraleRue Centrale. Editions L’Age d’Homme, 2013. {{ISBN|9782825143216}}
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the WorldPale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. Jonathan Cape, 2017. {{ISBN|9781910702376}}
Derborence: Where the devils came downDerborence: Where the devils came down. Skomlin, 2018. {{ISBN|9781789265811}}

= Articles =

{{cite web

| title = Biotechnology: "Biotechnology in Crops: Issues for the Developing World" by Laura Spinney for Oxfam GB

| website = San Francisco State University

| date = 13 January 1998

| url = http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/GEessays/biotechcrops.html

| access-date = 21 October 2018

}}

H.M. The Economist, 2008.
{{cite journal |date=October 11, 2014 |title=Goggle eyed |journal=New Scientist |volume=224 |issue=2990 |pages=42–45}}
{{cite web

| url = https://aeon.co/essays/disease-naming-must-change-to-avoid-scapegoating-and-politics

| title = Disease naming must change to avoid scapegoating and politics

| publisher = Aeon Essays

| accessdate = 21 October 2018

}}