The Great Plagues: The Black Death

As far back as the sixth century bubonic plague killed an estimated 25 million people, in fourteenth century Europe it destroyed as much as a third of the continent's population, and even as late as the nineteenth century it recurred in Asia, but was it a useful evil, something that drove criminality or the springboard for religious mania? Sir Richard J Evans from the University of Cambridge discusses its history and impact on social, economic and medical history.