Description
By investigating thousands of descriptions of epidemics reaching back before the fifth-century-BCE Plague of Athens to the distrust and violence that erupted with Ebola in 2014, Epidemics challenges a dominant hypothesis in the study of epidemics, that invariably across time and space, epidemics provoked hatred, blaming of the 'other', and victimizing bearers of epidemic diseases, particularly when diseases were mysterious, without known cures or preventive measures, as with AIDS during the last two decades of the twentieth century. However, scholars and public intellectuals, especially post-AIDS, have missed a fundamental aspect of the history of epidemics. Instead of sparking hatred and blame, this study traces epidemics' socio-psychological consequences across time and discovers a radically different picture: that epidemic diseases have more often unified societies across class, race, ethnicity, and religion, spurring self-sacrifice and compassion.
About the Author
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Over the past sixteen years, he has focused on the history of popular unrest in late medieval and early modern Europe and on the history of disease and medicine. Cohn's latest two books are Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns (2013) and Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance (OUP, 2010).
Reviews
...It is a lens that has once again become relevantto current events, and Cohn's book may well serve as a useful resourcefor other researchers who are taking a renewed interest in epidemics. * Kristy Wilson Bowers, Assistant Professor; Department of History, College of Arts and Science,University of Missouri, USA *
Epidemics, conceived in the influenza scare of 2009, is in itself a commemoration of all the deadliest plagues to have afflicted our species. ... covering the major infections from 430 BC, through the Black Death (134751) and syphilis (14945), to cholera (1832 onwards), smallpox in nineteenth-century America, plague in India since 1894, yellow fever (Southern USA), and the Great Influenza, with a coda on HIV/AIDS ... Cohn's aim is not just to tell their stories (although there are stories aplenty), but to tell them from a new perspective. * Anne Hardy, Times Literary Supplement *
...this is a work of considerable value. Thanks to Cohn, subsequent generations of historians may be inclined to study epidemics as a potential unifying force rather than merely a destructive one. * Mark Harrison, Journal of Modern History *
In a number of distinct contexts, Cohn uncovers responses of sympathy and mutual assistance crossing class, religious, gender or ethnic divides. These take very different forms - some grassroots movements and some organized centrally. Here, as in all other parts of the discussion, Cohn establishes that responses to epidemics are complicated by the specific nature of the disease as well as the context in which it develops. The mentalities, memories and manifestations of each varied. By reintroducing a number of complexities and ambiguities into the study of epidemic disease, Cohn illustrates the richness of the comparative history of disease, and his work will likely act as a point of reference and inspiration for many years to come. * Jane Stevens Cranshaw, Oxford Brookes University, European History Quarterly *
The historical breadth of this book, with its meticulous attention to varied sources and contexts, is simply breathtaking. ... This book will interest students of the history of medicine as well as anyone seeking a historical and comparative exploration of epidemics. It is dense and detailed reading ... this book will appeal chiefly to specialists at the graduate level and above. * CHOICE *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198819660
Author Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Format Hardback
Page Count 656
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1124g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 42mm
About the Author
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Over the past sixteen years, he has focused on the history of popular unrest in late medieval and early modern Europe and on the history of disease and medicine. Cohn's latest two books are Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns (2013) and Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance (OUP, 2010).
Reviews
...It is a lens that has once again become relevantto current events, and Cohn's book may well serve as a useful resourcefor other researchers who are taking a renewed interest in epidemics. * Kristy Wilson Bowers, Assistant Professor; Department of History, College of Arts and Science,University of Missouri, USA *
Epidemics, conceived in the influenza scare of 2009, is in itself a commemoration of all the deadliest plagues to have afflicted our species. ... covering the major infections from 430 BC, through the Black Death (134751) and syphilis (14945), to cholera (1832 onwards), smallpox in nineteenth-century America, plague in India since 1894, yellow fever (Southern USA), and the Great Influenza, with a coda on HIV/AIDS ... Cohn's aim is not just to tell their stories (although there are stories aplenty), but to tell them from a new perspective. * Anne Hardy, Times Literary Supplement *
...this is a work of considerable value. Thanks to Cohn, subsequent generations of historians may be inclined to study epidemics as a potential unifying force rather than merely a destructive one. * Mark Harrison, Journal of Modern History *
In a number of distinct contexts, Cohn uncovers responses of sympathy and mutual assistance crossing class, religious, gender or ethnic divides. These take very different forms - some grassroots movements and some organized centrally. Here, as in all other parts of the discussion, Cohn establishes that responses to epidemics are complicated by the specific nature of the disease as well as the context in which it develops. The mentalities, memories and manifestations of each varied. By reintroducing a number of complexities and ambiguities into the study of epidemic disease, Cohn illustrates the richness of the comparative history of disease, and his work will likely act as a point of reference and inspiration for many years to come. * Jane Stevens Cranshaw, Oxford Brookes University, European History Quarterly *
The historical breadth of this book, with its meticulous attention to varied sources and contexts, is simply breathtaking. ... This book will interest students of the history of medicine as well as anyone seeking a historical and comparative exploration of epidemics. It is dense and detailed reading ... this book will appeal chiefly to specialists at the graduate level and above. * CHOICE *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198819660
Author Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Format Hardback
Page Count 656
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1124g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 42mm
