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Kyle Harper is Professor of Classics and Letters and Provost Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma. He is a historian of the ancient world whose work has spanned economic, environmental, and social history. His latest book is Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History.
Our mastery over microbes is only a few decades old. It is also far more precarious than we imagine.
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For National Poetry Month, sign up for our newsletter and get a digital copy of our out-of-print chapbook Poems for Political Disaster.