A History of the World in Six Plagues unveils a powerful and unsettling truth: epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design.In this groundbreaking work, Bonhomme explores how six pivotal diseases - Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola and COVID-19 - have shaped the trajectory of human history. With vivid storytelling and rigorous research, she reveals how pandemics have consistently widened the gaps in racial, economic and sociopolitical divides, from the slave ships of the Atlantic to today's fractured healthcare systems.How did a colonial obsession with sugar amplify the devastation of Cholera? Why did sleeping sickness become a weapon of empire in Tanzania? And how has COVID-19 magnified inequities in our modern, interconnected world?Bonhomme's incisive analysis transforms our understanding of public health, not as a neutral force but as a stage where power, policy and prejudice collide. Urgent and illuminating, A History of the World in Six Plagues is not just a history of disease - it is a call to reimagine a more equitable future in the face of ongoing global health challenges.'This book tells the accounts of people who deserved better. It is also a story of redemption, and of the little child in all of us, curled up alone in a huge bed, without her parents, who wants to be healthy and free.'

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-03-13
Mått:233 x 25 x 153 mm
Vikt:418 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:320
Förlag:John Murray Press
ISBN:9780349704371
Översättare:Priscilla Layne

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Edna Bonhomme is a critic, historian, and journalist. She is a co-editor of the book After Sex, and her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Frieze, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The Nation. She earned her PhD in history from Princeton University and has a master's in public health from Columbia University. Edna has received awards and fellowships from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Camargo Foundation, the Robert Silvers Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation. She is a 2026 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Nona Balakian Award. Edna lives in Berlin, Germany.

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Pandemics thrive on inequities and widen them, providing more kindling for future plagues. This simple lesson has proven devastatingly difficult to learn. But I think that if everyone read Edna Bonhomme's incredible, humane, insightful book--and I hope they do--we might stand a chance of actually breaking the cycle of neglect and panic.