J. Henderson, Florence Under Siege: Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019). Pages xviii + 363 + plates 39 + maps 4 + figures 9 + tables 4. £30.00 hardback.

All of us wonder whether the most populous country in the world will be able to cope with the rapidly spreading epidemic, what could be the most effective measures that our highly interconnected societies can undertake to limit the diffusion of the virus, and how the world should best prepare to face an eventual pandemic [ ]western countries also face increasing episodes of racism and intolerance against East Asian communities, ignorantly claiming their hygiene and social habits are incompatible with those in the West Overall, this first section combines an overarching narrative with quantitative descriptive analysis;presenting the image of a city that tried to resist the arrival of the plague, but when it realised that isolation from outside was unsuccessful, put in place an impressive set of public measures to isolate the city from the internal threat of those members of the community thought to be the ones responsible for the plague's diffusion [ ]chapter 8 shows the judicial controversies associated with the implementation of these public measures in time of plague and reveals the extent of the authorities’ benevolence towards the poor