Plagues and Politics presents the fascinating history of the United States Public Health Service, written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the service's unique medical militia, the Commissioned Corps. 2-color illustrations.

Infectious diseases once thought to be controlled (such as malaria and tuberculosis) are now spreading rapidly across the globe, and lethal new disease agents (HIV/AIDS, ebola and BSE) continue to emerge at an ominous pace. Policymakers must consider the implications of disease proliferation for economic prosperity, general well-being, and national security in affected societies. This work represents a collection of articles from the premier authors in the field on the ramifications of disease emergence for international development, international law, and national security.

An expert legal review of the US government’s response to epidemics through history—with larger conclusions about COVID-19, and reforms needed for the next plague In this narrative history of the US through major outbreaks of contagious disease, from yellow fever to the Spanish flu, from HIV/AIDS to Ebola, Polly J. Price examines how law and government affected the outcome of epidemics—and how those outbreaks in turn shaped our government. Price presents a fascinating history that has never been fully explored and draws larger conclusions about the gaps in our governmental and legal response. Plagues in the Nation examines how our country learned—and failed to learn—how to address the panic, conflict, and chaos that are the companions of contagion, what policies failed America again and again, and what we must do better next time.

How did early modern people imagine their bodies? What impact did the new disease syphilis and recurrent outbreaks of plague have on these mental landscapes? Why was the glutted belly such a potent symbol of pathology? Ranging from the Reformation through the English Civil War, Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England is a unique study of a fascinating cultural imaginary of 'disease' and its political consequences. Healy's original approach illuminates the period's disease-impregnated literature, including works by Shakespeare, Milton, Dekker, Heywood and others.

Plagues, Politics, and Policy is an overview of the major health challenges confronting American Indians and Alaska Natives over the past fifty years and is a case study of the federal government's attempt to provide medical services to a categorical group of people in the United States. While it is not a detailed analysis of what socialized healthcare should or should not look like, it does examine the major social and political issues affecting the delivery of health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. This book addresses broad policy questions, such as whether or not American Indians and Alaska Natives have received better healthcare since the Indian medical service transferred from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Public Health Service in 1955. In the initial decades of Public Health Service control of IHS, the problems of infectious diseases were largely eliminated, but they have been replaced by new challenges which will require IHS and tribal leaders to work together to come up with solutions. Many American Indians and Alaska Natives also face public health challenges rooted in the social and political history of the federal Indian relationship. In this book, DeJong provides a path to improving the future of health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Plagues, Politics, and Policy is an overview of the major health challenges confronting American Indians and Alaska Natives over the past fifty years and is a case study of the federal government's attempt to provide medical services to a categorical group of people in the United States. While it is not a detailed Analysis of what socialized healthcare should or should not look like, it does examine the major social and political issues affecting the delivery of health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

This volume is an important contribution to our understanding of global pandemics in general and Covid-19 in particular. It brings together the reflections of leading social and political scientists who are interested in the implications and significance of the current crisis for politics and society. The chapters provide both analysis of the social and political dimensions of the Coronavirus pandemic and historical contextualization as well as perspectives beyond the crisis. The volume seeks to focus on Covid-19 not simply as the terrain of epidemiology or public health, but as raising fundamental questions about the nature of social, economic and political processes. The problems of contemporary societies have become intensified as a result of the pandemic. Understanding the pandemic is as much a sociological question as it is a biological one, since viral infections are transmitted through social interaction. In many ways, the pandemic poses fundamental existential as well as political questions about social life as well as exposing many of the inequalities in contemporary societies. As the chapters in this volume show, epidemiological issues and sociological problems are elucidated in many ways around the themes of power, politics, security, suffering, equality and justice. This is a cutting edge and accessible volume on the Covid-19 pandemic with chapters on topics such as the nature and limits of expertise, democratization, emergency government, digitalization, social justice, globalization, capitalist crisis, and the ecological crisis. Contents Notes on Contributors Preface Gerard Delanty 1. Introduction: The Pandemic in Historical and Global Context Part 1 Politics, Experts and the State Claus Offe 2. Corona Pandemic Policy: Exploratory Notes on its ‘Epistemic Regime’ Stephen Turner 3. The Naked State: What the Breakdown of Normality Reveals Jan Zielonka 4. Who Should be in Charge of Pandemics? Scientists or Politicians? Jonathan White 5. Emergency Europe after Covid-19 Daniel Innerarity 6. Political Decision-Making in a Pandemic Part 2 Globalization, History and the Future Helga Nowotny 7. In AI We Trust: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Pushes us Deeper into Digitalization Eva Horn 8. Tipping Points: The Anthropocene and COVID-19 Bryan S. Turner 9. The Political Theology of Covid-19: a Comparative History of Human Responses to Catastrophes Daniel Chernilo 10. Another Globalisation: Covid-19 and the Cosmopolitan Imagination Frédéric Vandenberghe & Jean-Francois Véran 11. The Pandemic as a Global Total Social Fact Part 3 The Social and Alternatives Sylvia Walby 12. Social Theory and COVID: Including Social Democracy Donatella della Porta 13. Progressive Social Movements, Democracy and the Pandemic Sonja Avlijaš 14. Security for Whom? Inequality and Human Dignity in Times of the Pandemic Albena Azmanova 15. Battlegrounds of Justice: The Pandemic and What Really Grieves the 99% Index

New Pandemics, Old Politics explores how the modern world adopted a martial script to deal with epidemic disease threats, and how this has failed – repeatedly. Europe first declared ‘war’ on cholera in the 19th century. It didn’t defeat the disease but it served purposes of state and empire. In 1918, influenza emerged from a real war and swept the world unchecked by either policy or medicine. Forty years ago, AIDS challenged the confidence of medical science. AIDS is still with us, but we have learned to live with it – chiefly because of community activism and emancipatory politics. Today, public health experts and political leaders who failed to listen to them agree on one thing: that we must ‘fight’ Covid-19. There’s a consensus that we should target individual pathogens and suppress them – rather than address the reasons why our societies are so vulnerable. Arguing that this consensus is mistaken, Alex de Waal makes the case for a new democratic public health for the Anthropocene.

Reactions to pandemics are unlike any other global emergency; with an emphasis on withdrawal and containment of the sight of the infected. Dealing with the historical and conceptual background of diseases in politics and international relations, this volume investigates the global political reaction to pandemic scares. By evaluating anxiety and the political response to pandemics as a legitimisation of the modern state and its ability to protect its citizens from infectious disease, Understanding the Politics of Pandemic Scares examines the connection between international health governance and the emerging Western liberal world order. The case studies, including SARS, Bird Flu and Swine Flu, provide an understanding of how the world order, global health governance and people’s bodies interact to produce scares and panics. Aaltola introduces an innovative new concept of ‘politosomatics’ based on the relationship that links individual stress, strain, and fear with global circulations of power to evaluate increasingly global bio-political environments in which pandemics exist. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of International Relations, Global Health, International Public Health and Global Health governance.