The Psychology of Pandemics

In The Psychology of Pandemics, you get a deep dive into different pandemics through time. Steven Taylor mentions various epidemics in his book, to name a few that get mentioned The Spanish flu from 1918, SARS, Ebola, and more. Please note Covid19 is not mentioned in this book as it got written before this pandemic.

Book information

Title: The Psychology of Pandemics

Star rating: 4 stars

Genre: Medical/ Academic

Release date: July 1, 2020 (second edition)

Pages: 178 (paperback length)

Price: Approximately $ 24.99 – $ 69.72

Note: The book price depends on where you buy it and the format of the book. Besides, the price might change after I’ve written this review

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

ISBN10: 1527549003

ISBN13: 978-1527549005

Authors: Steven Taylor

Author:

Steven Taylor: Mr. Taylor is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and other Disorders. Steven Taylor works at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Mr. Taylor is a Ph.D. professor and clinical psychologist. If you want to know more about Steven Taylor, you can visit his webpage here.

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Forewords from the reviewer

Dear readers. This review is out of the ordinary as it´s not about true crime. However, we thought some of you might find this an exciting read as we live through a pandemic right now with Covid19. This pandemic affects all of us; therefore, we thought we would share this review with you even though we usually share real crime book reviews. Please note we mention on our about page that we might have reviews of some other nonfiction subject on our page from time to time. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the review and that it might be helpful for you.

Review:

The Psychology of Pandemics

In the book The Psychology of Pandemics, you will learn about pandemics and the psychology behind epidemics. As far as I remember, this book’s first edition was published in 2019 before Covid19 became a pandemic. Therefore you have to note when Mr. Taylor discusses epidemics; he doesn’t mention Covid19; he refers to influenza pandemics. Steven Taylor takes us through a look at the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Some of the subjects mentioned in The Psychology of Pandemics we are quite familiar with today like social distancing washing our hands etc. However, we get information about how some people are more fearful than others and how social media and the news media spread fear. Besides, we get a look at conspiracy theories about Pandemics.

Pros and cons

Pros

The book guides the reader through the subject of pandemics and how it all began. As readers, we get provided with a short but very informative list of abbreviations used throughout the book. To give you a couple of examples: CBT is Cognitive-behavior therapy, and the CDC is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We get to know about pandemics and the psychology behind our behavior during an epidemic.

I find the information about how news media, social media, and conspiracies play a massive role in how people react to a pandemic very interesting. The Psychology of Pandemics has given me answers to some questions I have had with human behavior during the epidemic we live through.

Even though academic books tend to be very dry reads, I was amazed at how The Psychology of Pandemics didn’t have a lot of dry spots.

The book’s purpose has been to fill in a gap in our literature, and I have to say Steven Taylor has managed that most pleasingly.

Cons

As this is an academic book, there are many pages used for references and indexes; this is something you have to keep in mind if you decide to buy the book, so you don´t get disappointed. Even though Steven Taylor managed to keep me flipping the pages throughout his book, I found it a bit annoying that the purpose of the book gets mentioned quite frequently.

The writing of The Psychology of Pandemics

When I look at the book The Psychology of Pandemics, it´s easy to tell it is not for everyone. The book is an academic medical book; therefore, some might find the language difficult to understand. This book is not an easy read; you have to be interested in the subject to like this book. If you have not usually read academic texts, you might have to spend some extra time reading this as there might be wordings that will be unfamiliar to you. However, it´s not impossible to read this book no matter who you are.