This book aims to describe though in a quite light way the social role of plant diseases
letting the reader know the topical importance of plant pathology as well as the role of plant
pathologists in our society. Plant diseases caused in the past significant economic losses
deaths famine wars and migration. Some of them marked the history of entire countries. One
example among many: the potato late blight in Ireland in 1845. Today plant diseases are still
the cause of deaths often silent in developing countries and relevant economic losses in the
industrialized ones. This book written with much passion neither wants to be a plant
pathology text. On the contrary it wants to describe in simple words often enriched by the
author's personal experience various plant diseases that in different times and countries
did cause severe losses and damages. Besides the so-called historical plant diseases in the
process of writing this book she wanted to describe also some diseases that though not
causing famine or billions of losses because of their peculiarity might be of interest for
the readers. Thus this book has not been conceived and written for experts but for a broader
audience of different ages willing to learn more about plant health and to understand the
reasons why so many people in the past and nowadays choose to be plant pathologists. This is
because plants produce most of the food that we consume that we expect to be healthy and safe
and because plants make the world beautiful. The title Spores is evocative of the reproduction
mean of fungi. Spores are small light structures often moving fast. The chapters of this book
are short and concise. Just like spores!
