Kyle Harper is Professor of Classics and Letters and Provost Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma. He is a historian of the ancient world whose work has spanned economic, environmental, and social history. He is the author of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, which has been translated into twelve languages, and Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, which demonstrates how deadly diseases have shaped history—and why they are products of our success as a species. He tweets at @Oklahomaharper.