Covid-19 is not the first pandemic to affect human societies. The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history, but notorious plagues are well known in the Classical World and during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period.

Brepols has made available three bibliographies with an overview of recent academic publications in relation to the impact of infectious diseases in the past, and how societies have responded and adapted to them:

1. Infectious and contagious diseases in British and Irish History (data derived from the Bibliography of British and Irish History)
2. The Black Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period (data derived from Brepols Medieval and Early Modern Bibliographies)
3. The plague in the Classical World (data derived from L’Année philologique)