I know Wade Davis mostly from his book The Serpent and the Rainbow.  This article is a  good read but I have to add that the plague in the middle ages did not mean the end for Europe.  I am skeptical of a Chinese Century and think America may get a second shot, if only by default.  But hey, that first shot was by default, too.  From Rolling Stone

The Unraveling of America

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era