Humanity's Burden

James L. A. Webb Jr is Professor of History at Colby College, Maine. He is the author of Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change Along the Western Sahel, 1600–1850 and Tropical Pioneers: Human Agency and Ecological Change in the Highlands of Sri Lanka, 1800–1900. He is the founding editor of the Series in Ecology and History.

'No disease is more indicative of social and environmental change than malaria. Its geographical distribution and incidence have been intimately related to all fields of human endeavour, from the production of food to upheavals such as war and mass migration. James Webb's ecological history of malaria provides keen insights into this persistent affliction and into the history of humanity itself. His magisterial synthesis will be admired by historians and malariologists alike.' Mark Harrison, University of Oxford

• 1. Early tropical Africa; 2. Into Eurasia; 3. Into the Americas; 4. Bitter medicines; 5. Toward global public health; 6. Africa redux.