There is no question that European colonization introduced smallpox, measles, and other infectious diseases to the Americas, causing considerable harm and death to indigenous peoples. But though these diseases were devastating, their impact has been widely exaggerated. Warfare, enslavement, land expropriation, removals, erasure of identity, and other factors undermined Native populations. These factors worked in a deadly cabal with germs to cause epidemics, exacerbate mortality, and curtail population recovery. Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America challenges the “virgin soil” hypothesis that was used for decades to explain the decimation of the indigenous people of North America. This hypothesis argues that the massive depopulation of the New World was caused primarily by diseases brought by European colonists that infected Native populations lacking immunity to foreign pathogens. In Beyond Germs, contributors expertly argue that blaming germs lets Europeans off the hook for the enormous number of Native American deaths that occurred after 1492. Archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians come together in this cutting-edge volume to report a wide variety of other factors in the decline in the indigenous population, including genocide, forced labor, and population dislocation. These factors led to what the editors describe in their introduction as “systemic structural violence” on the Native populations of North America. While we may never know the full extent of Native depopulation during the colonial period because the evidence available for indigenous communities is notoriously slim and problematic, what is certain is that a generation of scholars has significantly overemphasized disease as the cause of depopulation and has downplayed the active role of Europeans in inciting wars, destroying livelihoods, and erasing identities.

Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America challenges the hypothesis that the massive depopulation of the New World was primarily caused by diseases brought by Europeans, which scholars used for decades to explain the decimation of the indigenous peoples of North America. Contributors expertly argue that blaming germs downplays the active role of Europeans in inciting wars, destroying livelihoods, and erasing identities.

Traces the American tradition of suspicion of the unassimilated, from the cholera outbreak of the 1830s through the great waves of immigration that began in the 1890s, to the recent past, when the erroneous association of Haitians with the AIDS virus brought widespread panic and discrimination. Kraut (history, American U.) found that new immigrant populations--made up of impoverished laborers living in urban America's least sanitary conditions--have been victims of illness rather than its progenitors, yet the medical establishment has often blamed epidemics on immigrants' traditions, ethnic habits, or genetic heritage. Originally published in hardcover by Basic Books in 1994. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a halt. In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. So what can -- and must -- we do in order to protect ourselves? Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, and policy research, Deadliest enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease.--

The work of Dr. Cooper Curtice (1856–1939) played a major role in saving America's livestock industry in the years around the turn of the century. But as the new biography Beyond the Germ Theory shows, Curtice's career exemplifies not only the development of veterinary medicine in the U.S. but also how government agencies and professional jealousies affect the advancement of science."Curtis did not receive the timely credit and recognition that was due him," author Jeanne N. Logue observes. His greatest achievement was helping to eradicate ticks and the Texas fever they caused in cattle. But as he conducted his research, proposed the vector theory of disease transmission, and fought for a tick eradication program, his scientific peers often scorned his new ideas, only to appropriate them later. Curtice graduated from Cornell in 1881, and after a short stint in medical school at the University of Michigan he transferred to the Columbia Veterinary College in New York City. In 1886 he was invited to join the new Bureau of Animal Industry in Washington, D.C. While there, bureaucratic squabbling, questionable ethics in the organization, and professional backbiting buffeted his research. After a few years he left, vowing to continue his mission to eradicate ticks and stop the spread of tuberculosis by milk from diseased cattle. In his home state of New York, Curtice was the first to start testing cattle for tuberculosis, and his research contributed to the control of parasites in sheep. For his efforts, though, he sometimes received less than thanks. One cattleman wrote him a letter saying, "You are a big ass and don't know nothing about cattle . . . feed the cattle sulpher [sic] and you will have them well in a week." Other times, Curtice faced armed men or other threats to his safety. On the professional side of the insults, when his former supervisor Theobald Smith published an acclaimed paper on Texas fever, he did so without even mentioning Curtice's name. Eventually, Curtice returned to government service and continued his work in Central America. Not until 1933 did he receive national recognition for his work, in the form of a medallion from the American Veterinary Medical Association. Five years after his death in 1939, the cattle fever tick that had occupied much of Curtice's attention was declared eradicated in the U.S. except for a narrow quarantine zone along the Texas-Mexico border.

How smallpox, or Variola, caused widespread devastation during the European colonization of the Americas is a well-known story. But as historian Paul Kelton informs us, that’s precisely what it is: a convenient story. In Cherokee Medicine, Colonial Germs Kelton challenges the “virgin soil thesis,” or the widely held belief that Natives’ lack of immunities and their inept healers were responsible for their downfall. Eschewing the metaphors and hyperbole routinely associated with the impact of smallpox, he firmly shifts the focus to the root cause of indigenous suffering and depopulation—colonialism writ large; not disease. Kelton’s account begins with the long, false dawn between 1518 and the mid-seventeenth century, when sporadic encounters with Europeans did little to bring Cherokees into the wider circulation of guns, goods, and germs that had begun to transform Native worlds. By the 1690s English-inspired slave raids had triggered a massive smallpox epidemic that struck the Cherokees for the first time. Through the eighteenth century, Cherokees repeatedly responded to real and threatened epidemics—and they did so effectively by drawing on their own medicine. Yet they also faced terribly destructive physical violence from the British during the Anglo-Cherokee War (1759–1761) and from American militias during the Revolutionary War. Having suffered much more from the scourge of war than from smallpox, the Cherokee population rebounded during the nineteenth century and, without abandoning Native medical practices and beliefs, Cherokees took part in the nascent global effort to eradicate Variola by embracing vaccination. A far more complex and nuanced history of Variola among American Indians emerges from these pages, one that privileges the lived experiences of the Cherokees over the story of their supposedly ill-equipped immune systems and counterproductive responses. Cherokee Medicine, Colonial Germs shows us how Europeans and their American descendants have obscured the past with the stories they left behind, and how these stories have perpetuated a simplistic understanding of colonialism.

Traces the history of germs, discussing how germs have been viewed and treated throughout time and explains why germs now pose an even greater risk to mankind than ever before.

Biological warfare has, unfortunately, in the post 9/11 world become a significant topic of discussion in both the medical and lay presses. In the wake of the biological "letter bombs" containing anthrax spores, the possibility of biologic and/or toxic attacks on civilians in any part of the world became no longer a possibility. It is now part of common discussion and consciousness. This book presents the history of the topics and clinically relevant discussions on those high risk (Category A) diseases beyond anthrax as well as a number of infections and toxins at the Category B level. Importantly, in addition, the text includes sections on Public Health Infrastructure, Public Health Law, Surveillance, Mental Health Management and Media Role all of which relate to epidemics of any sort, not just intentional biological events. Beyond Anthrax: The Weaponization of Infectious Diseases is a product that should serve as a reference point for clinicians, epidemiologists and public health personnel to understand in practical detail many of the aspects of weapons of biowarfare as well as the appropriate responses to them.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools enabled has us humans to control the destiny of our species "A wondrous, visionary work." --Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

New York Times Bestseller New York Times Notable Book of 2016 • NPR Great Read of 2016 • Named a Best Book of 2016 by The Economist, Smithsonian, NPR's Science Friday, MPR, Minnesota Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Times (London) From Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin—a “microbe’s-eye view” of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth. Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are. The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people. Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us—the microbiome—build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities. In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.