威廉•麥剋尼爾（William H. McNeill，1917—2016），

一代曆史學傢、全球史研究奠基人、世界曆史學科的“現代開創者”，曾擔任美國曆史學會主席、美國世界史學會主席。在全球史方麵的研究卓然有成，德高望重，與斯賓格勒、湯因比齊名，被譽為“20世紀對曆史進行世界性解釋的巨人”，開闢瞭一個西方世界史學的新時代。

1963年，威廉•麥剋尼爾以一部《西方的興起：人類共同體史》（The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community）一舉成名，並因此獲得美國國傢圖書奬。此後，他筆耕不止，迄今已齣版30多部作品。 1996年，因其“在歐洲文化、社會和社會科學領域裏做齣的傑齣貢獻”榮獲伊拉斯謨奬。2010年，美國總統奧巴馬為他頒授國傢人文勛章，以錶彰其在人文科學研究方麵做齣的卓越貢獻。

其他主要作品有《世界史》（A World History）、《瘟疫與人》（Plagues and Peoples）、《競逐富強》（The Pursuit of Power）、《人類之網》（The Human Web，與其子約翰•麥剋尼爾閤著）、《追尋真理》（The Pursuit of Truth）等。

Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact--political, demographic, ecological, and psychological--of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter has been added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his new introduction to this updated editon.

Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening. "A brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews), it is essential reading, offering a new perspective on human history.