This book is a major and wide-ranging study of the great epidemic scourges of humanity-plague, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, cholera, and yellow fever/malaria-over the last six centuries. It will become the standard account of the way diseases arising through chance, through reckless environmental change engineered by man, or through a combination of each were interpreted in Western Europe and in the colonized world. "This trenchant book provides a salutary antidote to world health complacency, past and present."-Roy Porter, The Times (London) "Watts' . . . mastery of six centuries of Western-influenced infectious disease and sanitation history is impressive. He also writes with authority about the pre-modern and modern medical profession."-Claire Panosian, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Watts offers solid, stunning examples of Western idiocy that created superhighways for once-obscure microbes, leading to horrendous epidemics. . . . His is a perspective that Western, particularly Caucasian, policy-makers would do well to comprehend."-Laurie Garrett, Foreign Affairs "The convenience of so much history of diseases in one place is obvious. [An] engrossing book."-Gert Brieger, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine "An important contribution to our understanding of the history of disease, public health, and imperialism."-Suzanne Austin Alchon, American Historical Review
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Following are excerpts of reviews.
"At the heart of _Epidemics and History_ is a keen appreciation of the contribution, both to the plagues and our responses to them, of social inequalities. I am willing to predict that Watts's trenchant examination of African leprosaria will become classical medical history." (Paul Farmer, M.D., Natural History_, 9/98)
"At the heart of _Epidemics and History_ is a keen appreciation of the contribution, both to the plagues and our responses to them, of social inequalities. I am willing to predict that Watts's trenchant examination of African leprosaria will become classical medical history." (Paul Farmer, M.D., Natural History_, 9/98)
"a large and at times complex work of historical synthesis. The convenience of so much history of diseases in one place is obvious. [An] engrossing book." (Gert Brieger, M.D. of Harvard Medical School, _New England Journal of Medicine_, 7/2/98)
"Based in Cairo and hence immune from automatic Eurocentricism, Watts is as sceptical of the medical profession as of the governments and business interests they ultimately served. His case carries much conviction." (Roy Porter of Wellcome History of Medicine, London, _The Times_, 11/20/97)
"[Watts] shows how widely human predatory instincts have always conditioned attitudes to disease so as to exploit any prevailing epidemic--the darker side of history as it were---and a compelling and dramatic read." (Alan Cameron, _Lloyd's List_, 1/10/98)
"[Watts] has taken upon himself the task of crossing the no man's land between the liberal arts and sciences and deserves a pat on the back...it's fascinating." (Alfred Crosby of the University of Texas, _Washington Post_, 8/18/98).
"a massive work of synthesis...Watts's book draws on recent critical studies which demonstrate how during times of epedemic disease, and in the heyday of communicable diseases such as leprosy and syphillis, coercive power was imposed on the weak, the politically and socially undesirable, and especially on the colonized under the guise of disease prevention." (Andrew Wear of Wellcome History of Medicine, London, _Times literary Supplement_, 6/19/98)
"a bold and imaginative attempt at synthesis. Yellow fever and malaria provide him with striking examples of how disease was used to bolster arguments about racial superiority and segregation in the American south and colonial west Africa." (David Arnold of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, _The Times Higher Education Supplement, 1/16/98). --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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In the summer of 1347 rats and fleas infected with bubonic plague boarded Genoese merchant ships at Caffa on the Black Sea. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In the summer of 1347 rats and fleas infected with bubonic plague boarded Genoese merchant ships at Caffa on the Black Sea. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Watt's has attempted an ambitious work, a wide ranging study of epidemic dieseases from around the world, and to a certain attempt is sucessful. However, it is the books wide subject matter that is its downfall, in that this book tells us nothing we don't already know. For example to any reader who's studied Britain in the nineteenth century the chapter on Cholera will come as no surprise, in fact you're better off reading a school textbook.
My other problem with the book was the constant and often irrelevant references to Cairo, which got slightly tedious after a while. Does every historian continually tell the reader where he lives? The footnoting and references are atrocious, and when checked do not back up Watt's argument at all (eg Joanna Bourke's article on Victorian housewifery). In the chapter on syphillis Watt's spends pages discussing obscure French intellectuals, then devotes a vague paragraph to the First World War - something that deserves far more attention.
Add the pretentious and ultimately meaningless title ("Diesase, power and imperialism" - diesase yes, not sure about power and imperialism, whose empire?, whose power?) and you've got a thoroughly unsatisfactory book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone hoping to learn something new about the history of infectious disease wont learn much from this boring, over-long treatise. Professor Watts maybe a much respected social and cultural historian but he's still got a lot to learn about the biology of infectious disease, epidemiology and the role of public health in the improvement of global health since the 19th century. Whereas the early chapters on plague and leprosy are quite interesting and insightful, the later ones on malaria and cholera are full of mistakes and subjective assertions. Indeed the author's serious lack of knowledge on the subject of epidemics and history can be summed up in one short sentence in the chapter on cholera where he disdainfully brushes aside John Snow's vital contribution to the birth of modern epidemiology as "Alice-in-Wonderland curiosity".
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This work is impressive in its breadth of scholarship, but the author's personal rancor at Europeans' ill treatment of the rest of the world detracts from the narrative. The descriptions of the decimation of the Taino, the Aztecs, Inca and others within a century by the Spanish is truly horrific. Repeatedly referring to the Spanish as "terrorists" weakens, rather than reinforces the point. They were not terrorists: they were behaving as Europeans historically have. The author's succinct explanation of the reasons for the Spanish attitudes toward New World peoples makes his subsequent indignation with their actions curious, to say the least. Similarly, his explanation of malaria and yellow fever is extensive, but his indignation at Europeans in response to the diseases detracts from his scholarship. That Europeans are arrogant, naive, biased, pig-headed, murderous and short-sighted should come as no revelation to anyone reading this book. Other peoples in the world are too, but they didn't all have the opportunity to impose their will on others. To complement this work, Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel,and MacNeill's The Rise of the West, and Plagues and Peoples cover much of the same ground and posit theories how Europeans came to be in a position to impose their will on much of the rest of the world. Overall, a very interesting book, which would be better without these occasional, distracting polemics.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I found this book an excellent companion to earlier books on the subject (McNeill, Crosby), as it puts diseases in human society in a historic social/cultural and political context. I started out sceptical but then got caught by the book and its analyis was for me an eye-opener on how (Western) medicine was a tool often used for ends that had nothing to do with physical well-being, sickness prevention and care. The end conclusions on economics and health economics i do not share at all, i think the author gets carried away a bit and goes way too fast to condemn economists here, (guess what my profession is). Definitely worth while.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
The book has a very attractive and rather unkown subject. The analysis of different diseases and interactions between social powers, religion and the emergence of diseases is very interesting. But the information given about the Eastern and Islamic world is confined to Egypt. The author makes comments only relying on the Egyptian data and this is rather weak. But as a whole the book gives very useful information and shows that all these medical advances now and in history are not so innocent as in most cases economic concerns suppress humanity.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Shelson Watts' Epidemics and History is an absolutely indispensible book. It is no exaggeraton to call it one of the most important books ever published. Watts is fearless in pulling the curtains back on the West's delusions and self-told lies. The book shows the connections among racism, imperialism, corporatism, capitalism, poverty, and disease. The conclusions are shocking, but it his penetrating analysis which renders what is shocking also understandable. Read this book.
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