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Collected Item: “'A Journal of the Plague Year' relevant 300 years after publication”

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'A Journal of the Plague Year' relevant 300 years after publication

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News Opinion Piece

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During the pandemic, I took a graduate history course in which we read Daniel Defoe's 'A Journal of a Plague Year.' I had read the piece about 5 years before, but I missed so many of its nuances because it all seemed so foreign. It was striking to me both how much and how little has changed from 1665 to 2020/21. Quarantine, death tolls, travel bans, hoarding had all suddenly become commonplace occurrences that I could relate to. The centuries may have changed our technology drastically, but nothing seems to have changed about the human condition nor the human spirit.

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Daniel Defoe, Journal of a Plague Year, pandemic, Covid-19, Black Death, Bubonic Plague, plague, quarantine, death toll, travel ban, hoarding, technology, human condition, human spirit

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https://www.knoxnews.com/story/opinion/2020/05/05/a-journal-plague-year-relevant-300-years-after-publication-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic/2985196001/

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Misty G. Anderson

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2021-06-02
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