Frank M. Snowden is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor Emeritus of History and History of Medicine at Yale University. His previous books include The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900–1962 and Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911.
“Brilliant and sobering.”—Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal
"Snowden . . . examines the ways in which disease outbreaks have
shaped politics, crushed revolutions, and entrenched racial and
economic discrimination. . . . Gigantic in scope, stretching across
centuries and continents, Snowden’s account seeks to explain, too,
the ways in which social structures have allowed diseases to
flourish."—Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker
"Frank Snowden’s book presents a comprehensive historical
perspective on societies' vulnerabilities to pandemics. The author
presents these not as random events but rather endogenous: "Every
society produces its own specific vulnerabilities". Pandemics help
us understand societies' structures and their political priorities.
A well-written, highly entertaining and relevant book."—Milton
Hayek, Financial Times ‘Readers' Best Books’
“[A] wide-ranging study”—Laura Spinney, Nature
"Covering roughly a millennium on about 550 pages is no small
task…very readable"—Christoph Gradmann, The Lancet
“This book shows us horrors and positive results of the past, from
greater suffering and inequality to the creation of the World
Health Organisation and Doctors Without Borders.”—Gloria Steinem,
The Week
“Epidemics and Society offers space for discussion and
interdisciplinary perspectives that allow the reader to grasp the
role played by infectious diseases in shaping human societies in
all its complexity.”—Baptiste Baylac‐Paouly, Metascience
“The worst demographic disaster of the twentieth century, is
mentioned, but not analysed, in Snowden’s splendidly readable book,
originally given as lectures to his undergraduate class at Yale. If
the inter-disciplinary lectures were as clear and provocative with
ideas as the book,
they were fortunate students indeed.”—David Killingray, Family &
Community History
"Essential reading for anyone who is concerned about society’s
preparedness to meet new microbial challenges and who appreciates
the importance of history to develop effective and efficient
responses."—Socrates Litsios, author of The Tomorrow of Malaria
“A superb synthesis of a complex and important topic. Snowden
brings to the subject a wealth of previous research on disease and
brilliantly integrates his work into more general historical
concerns. A major achievement.”—William Bynum, author of A Little
History of Science
"Professor Snowden provides an authoritative and very readable
historical account of several of the major the major infectious
diseases epidemics that have afflicted mankind with a focus on
their impact on society."—Brian Greenwood, London School of
Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
"In an era of rapidly emerging diseases, Epidemics and Society
reminds us that in framing epidemics we are also, always,
refiguring human life and fate in relation to ecology and
society."—Warwick Anderson, author of Colonial Pathologies:
American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the
Philippines
“A distinctive and very useful contribution to the public
understanding of disease."—Mark Harrison, author of Contagion:
How Commerce Has Spread Disease and Director, Wellcome Unit
for the History of Medicine
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