Plagues and Epidemics Infected Spaces Past and Present [Hardcover]

Until recently, plagues were thought to belong in the ancient past. Now
there are deep worries about global pandemics. This book presents views
from anthropology about this much publicized and complex
problem.
The authors take us to places where epidemics are
erupting, waning, or gone, and to other places where they have not yet
arrived, but where a frightening story line is already in place. They
explore public health bureaucracies and political arenas where the power
lies to make decisions about what is, and is not, an epidemic. They
look back into global history to uncover disease trends and look ahead
to a future of expanding plagues within the context of climate
change.
The chapters are written from a range of perspectives,
from the science of modeling epidemics to the social science of
understanding them. Patterns emerge when people are engulfed by diseases
labeled as epidemics but which have the hallmarks of plague. There are
cycles of shame and blame, stigma, isolation of the sick, fear of
contagion, and end-of-the-world scenarios. Plague, it would seem, is
still among us.

Charles L. Briggs
4.On creating epidemics, plagues and other wartime alarums and excursions: enumerating versus estimating civilian mortality in Iraq
James Trostle
5.Avian influenza and the third epidemiological transition
Ron Barrett
6.Deconstructing an epidemic: Cholera in Gibraltar
Lawrence A. Sawchuk
7.The end of plague? TB in New Zealand
Judith Littleton, Julie Park and Linda Bryder
8.Epidemics and time: Influenza and tuberculosis during and after the 1918-19 pandemic
Andrew Noymer
9.Everyday mortality in the time of plague: Ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances in Massachusetts before and during the 1918 flu epidemic
Alan C. Swedlund
10.The coming plague of avian influenza
D. Ann Herring and Stacy Lockerbie
11.Past into present: History and the making of knowlelS•