Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-162) and index.

The insect facts of life -- The horrible history of human hygiene -- The land of silk and honey -- Bad-news bugs -- The earliest epidemics -- Close encounters of the ancient kind -- Medieval microbes -- More thinking but still stinking: the Renaissance -- Travel troubles -- It's all fun and games until someone loses an isle -- How revolutionary! -- Dastardly diseases and demented dictators -- The Nineteenth Century: crawling toward a cure -- The nitty gritty about the itty bitty: germs discovered at last -- Twentieth-century pox -- The craze about sprays -- Now what?

Chronicles the rivalry between the human and insect worlds that draws on myriad disciplines to explain the varying roles that bugs have played in building and toppling empires as well as the bug stories behind infamous disasters.