When UW Press announced to me back in September 2020 that they wanted to reissue “The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence” in paper, they didn’t allow me to revise and update (probably wise, since it would take a while to accomplish). So we settled on an interim solution: that the Press would insert a line directing readers to my website for more information and summaries of new research.
So I’m going to start a series of updates, on several topics of import to the contents of the book. In the twenty-two years(!) since 1999, when “The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence” was first published, there has been considerable movement on the broad topic of “disease and demography in the Americas” (to borrow the title of the 1992 book), but less on the Pacific Northwest per se. In my series of updates I want to concentrate on the narrow regional focus, and direct readers to relevant works published since the year 2000.