This scenario has become painfully familiar to us. India was one of the countries hit\n\nhardest by the Covid pandemic, with a tragically high number of casualties. The\npandemic also made some things an integral part of our lives: wearing masks,\nsanitizing, social distancing, isolating oneself.\nNone of this, however, is unique - even though the Covid virus was a new one. Over\nthe centuries, wave after wave of the devastating plague pandemic had impacted\nhumanity in similar ways, and the responses to the threats it posed had been similar\ntoo. From sixth-century Constantinople and fourteenth-century Europe to Islamic\nSpain, seventeenth-century London, eighteenth-century Aleppo, and Hong Kong,\nBombay, San Francisco and South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth\ncenturies, the history of the plague is, in a way, the story of modern civilization.\nThe Moral Contagion is an insightful and absorbing take on that story. Based on Julia\nHauser's rigorous scholarship and enhanced by Sarnath Banerjee's wry illustrations,\nthis utterly gripping book playfully melds meticulous research with imaginative\nstorytelling to create a graphic narrative about pandemics and reflect on how societies\nand individuals tend to react when faced with an adversary that is, literally, larger than\nlife.