Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence

Description

Epidemic diseases have always been a test of the ability of human societies to withstand sudden shocks. How are such large mortalities and the illness of large proportions of the population to be explained and dealt with? How have the sources of disease been identified and controls imposed? The chapters in this book, by acknowledged experts in the history of their periods, look at the ways in which the great epidemic diseases of the past--from classical Athens to the present day--have shaped not only our views of medicine and disease, but the ways in which people have defined the "health" of society in general terms.

'Epidemics and Ideas shows how epidemics evoke a series of recognisable reactions and responses from society beyond the specifics of pathogen, place or time. It is a very modern book, which brings successfully together history, anthropology, sociology and other so-called social sciences with medicine, or at least with public health. It goes far beyond the earlier appreciation of the relationship between human society and diseases ... brings a vast specialised literature about past epidemics and the response of society to them within reach of the general reader'. New Scientist '... a remarkable cohesive and delightfully variegated book that brings medical and biological history into firm and fruitful contact with intellectual and social history ... This is, in short, a splendid book - subtle, informed, sophisticated and coherent. It shows how successfully the social history of epidemics has come of age in recent years'. The Journal of Social History