Yale’s Frank Snowden on how this pandemic, like others, is changing history

If 2020 had been coronavirus-free, it would have been difficult to envision a Donald Trump defeat or to see the global economy operating under strict statist control fueled by printed money. These are only two developments that are bound to cause a kind of lasting change that has not yet been fully realized.

It's not the first time this has happened. Indeed, history-altering epidemics have been the norm throughout the centuries. Without epidemics Napoleon could have established a long-lasting French-speaking global empire, Constantinople would have been strong enough to effectively fight off the Ottomans in 1453, and even the ancient city-state of Athens could have been transformed into an empire that could have reigned over the Mediterranean, and even Europe, for centuries.

Back to 2021: The world as it was just a year ago has been profoundly changed by the...