In his work, the largest American macrohistorian William McNeil (1917–2016) proposed a fundamentally new interpretation of world history, centered on the enormous impact of epidemic diseases on human societies. Political, economic, demographic, environmental, cultural and psychological aspects of interaction between people and infections McNeill traces back to pre-literate history, with special emphasis on events such as the Antonine Plague in the Roman Empire, the Black Plague in Europe in the 14th century, the cholera epidemics of the 19th century, and also dwells in detail on epidemics in China little known to Western readers. Due to the scale of the material and the novelty of the theoretical approach, “Epidemics and Nations,” first published in 1976, immediately became an intellectual bestseller. Attention to the work at the time of its first publication was also ensured by the author’s alarming forecasts. In the 1970s, many scientists and doctors were inclined to believe that the great epidemics of the past had been defeated, but McNeil warned that new encounters with deadly infections were inevitable, since humans remained a biological being. Subsequently, this forecast was confirmed many times - from the rapid spread of AIDS since the 1980s to the current global coronavirus pandemic.