Book ID: CBB678769700

American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 (2020)

unapi

Witt, John Fabian (Author)


Yale University Press


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 184
Language: English

A concise history of how American law has shaped—and been shaped by—the experience of contagion, "taking us from the smallpox outbreaks of the colonies to COVID-19. . . . The conclusion [Witt] arrives at is devastating." (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times)"One wishes that, six months ago, every member of Congress and the Trump administration had been forced to read and reckon with the history Witt neatly summarizes. But now in the aftermath of a close, bitterly fought election, let’s hope that this book will help America chart its way forward."—Jill Filipovic, Washington Post From yellow fever to smallpox to polio to AIDS to COVID-19, epidemics have prompted Americans to make choices and answer questions about their basic values and their laws. In five concise chapters, historian John Fabian Witt traces the legal history of epidemics, showing how infectious disease has both shaped, and been shaped by, the law. Arguing that throughout American history legal approaches to public health have been liberal for some communities and authoritarian for others, Witt shows us how history’s answers to the major questions brought up by previous epidemics help shape our answers today: What is the relationship between individual liberty and the common good? What is the role of the federal government, and what is the role of the states? Will long-standing traditions of government and law give way to the social imperatives of an epidemic? Will we let the inequities of our mixed tradition continue?

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Reviewed By

Essay Review Anne-Emanuelle Birn (2022) Pandemic Histories: Making Meaning or Embedding Bromides?. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 953-960). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB678769700/

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Authors & Contributors
Loeckx, Renilde
John Aggrey
Packard, Randall M.
Abou Traore
Paige Miller
Pablo Kreimer
Concepts
Epidemics
Infectious diseases
Public health
Smallpox
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Disease and diseases
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
18th century
Early modern
20th century, late
Places
United States
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kenya
East Asia
Québec (Canada)
South Africa
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