Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe

William Rosen was born in California on February 12, 1955. He graduated from UCLA. Before becoming an author, he worked for nearly 25 years as an editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, and the Free Press. He authored or co-authored books on education, traffic, antibiotics, and climate change. His books include Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe; The Most Powerful Idea in the World: The Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention; and The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century. He died from gastrointestinal stromal cancer on April 28, 2016 at the age of 61.