Wendy Orent

Cultural Anthropologist and Author, Atlanta, Georgia

Wendy Orent is an Atlanta-based anthropologist specialising in health and disease. She is the author of Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease (2012).

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Written by Wendy Orent

Vintage photo of a night scene with a large vehicle in the foreground and a group of people gathered on a pavement in front of a building.

essayIllness and disease

Stealth infections

From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy people

Wendy Orent

Close-up of a child’s face with striking blue eyes, wearing a blue hood. The expression is intense and serious.

ideaHuman evolution

When evolution is not a slow dance but a fast race to survive

Wendy Orent

A painting depicting a chaotic, apocalyptic scene with skeletons and people amid destruction and despair against a grim landscape.

essayIllness and disease

The Black Death

At least one in three Europeans and untold millions in Asia died. What was the source of this brutal, lethal efficiency?

Wendy Orent

A child in a red shawl overlooking a refugee camp with numerous tents, distant buildings, and hazy mountains in the background.

essayIllness and disease

How plagues really work

The next pandemic will erupt, not from the jungle, but from the disease factories of hospitals, refugee camps and cities

Wendy Orent