"Maladies of Empire has a captivating writing style, is exhaustively researched, and is persuasive in argumentation. Jim Downs has written a game-changing book."-Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
"An eye-popping study of the history of infectious diseases, how they spread, and especially how they have been thwarted by experimentation on the bodies of soldiers, slaves, and colonial subjects a timely, brilliant book about some of the brutal ironies in the story of medical progress."-David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass
"Brilliant Jim Downs uncovers the origins of epidemiology in slavery, colonialism, and war. A most original global history, this book is required reading for historians, medical researchers, and really anyone interested in the origins of modern medicine."-Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton
"[Sheds] light on the violent foundations of disease control interventions and public health initiatives [and] implores us to address their inequities in the present."-Ragav Kishore, The Lancet
Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale's care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene. Yet focusing on individual innovators ignores many of the darker, unacknowledged sources of medical knowledge.
Reexamining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. From Africa and India to the Americas, plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories where physicians came to understand the spread of disease. Boldly argued and urgently relevant, Maladies of Empire gives a long overdue account of the true price of medical progress.
"Maladies of Empire has a captivating writing style, is exhaustively researched, and is persuasive in argumentation. Jim Downs has written a game-changing book."-Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
"An eye-popping study of the history of infectious diseases, how they spread, and especially how they have been thwarted by experimentation on the bodies of soldiers, slaves, and colonial subjects a timely, brilliant book about some of the brutal ironies in the story of medical progress."-David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass
"Brilliant Jim Downs uncovers the origins of epidemiology in slavery, colonialism, and war. A most original global history, this book is required reading for historians, medical researchers, and really anyone interested in the origins of modern medicine."-Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton
"[Sheds] light on the violent foundations of disease control interventions and public health initiatives [and] implores us to address their inequities in the present."-Ragav Kishore, The Lancet
Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale's care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene. Yet focusing on individual innovators ignores many of the darker, unacknowledged sources of medical knowledge.
Reexamining the foundations of modern medicine, Jim Downs shows that the study of infectious disease depended crucially on the unrecognized contributions of conscripted soldiers, enslaved people, and subjects of empire. From Africa and India to the Americas, plantations, slave ships, and battlefields were the laboratories where physicians came to understand the spread of disease. Boldly argued and urgently relevant, Maladies of Empire gives a long overdue account of the true price of medical progress.
Jim Downs is Gilder Lehrman–National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. He is the editor of Civil War History and author and editor of six other books, including Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
For those of us looking warily toward future epidemics, this book
draws our attention to oft-forgotten sources of medical
knowledge…Deserves to be read, particularly now. Few will question
the salvational power that epidemiology will likely have in the
years to come.
*Science*
Downs has now given global context to nineteenth-century advances
in medicine and public health, beyond the dominant histories rooted
in Western Europe and the ancient world. In Maladies of Empire, he
centers slave ships, people living in colonized countries,
prisoners, and wars in the narrative of medical discovery, at the
foundation of epidemiology…He recovers lost and untold stories and
makes visible things that need to be seen.
*Nature*
[A] searching reappraisal of the origins of epidemiology…Those who
lead epidemiology and public health today should read Maladies of
Empire. They might wish to reflect on the origins of their
discipline, the histories they choose to ignore, the myths they
prefer to propagate. And they might wish to consider the debt
they—we—owe to those who were, and in some cases still are, abused,
mistreated, and manipulated in the name of public health.
*The Lancet*
Maladies of Empire has a captivating writing style, is exhaustively
researched, and is persuasive in argumentation. Jim Downs has
written a game-changing book.
*Deirdre Cooper Owens, author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender,
and the Origins of American Gynecology*
Maladies of Empire provides an illuminating, painstaking, yet
engaging interrogation of original records and sources, filling
critical gaps in the development of epidemiology. Indispensable and
compelling.
*Harriet A. Washington, author of the National Book Critics Circle
Award–winning Medical Apartheid*
Exposes how doctors with few clues made concerted efforts to track
and understand deadly epidemics at a time when the colonialist
enterprise was aggressively remaking the world…[Downs] fleshes out
a crucial part of a larger tapestry to help explain the onset of
racial segregation in the United States. The people whose
experiences he tries to recover ‘appear only as fragments’ in the
historical record but they impart a crucial dimension that remains
utterly germane to the present.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
Connects imperialism, enslavement, and warfare to argue that it is
at the intersection of these processes that we can trace the
beginnings of modern epidemiological thinking…Not only does such a
narrative shed light on the violent foundations of disease control
interventions and public health initiatives, but it also implores
us to address their inequities in the present. At a time when
low-income and middle-income countries struggle for access to
vaccines in the COVID-19 pandemic, such an endeavor could not be
more urgent.
*The Lancet*
A compelling read for everyone interested in the connection between
slavery, colonialism, and war and the advancement of medical
knowledge.
*International Social Science Review*
Relevant reading for historians in a wide variety of fields but
especially healthcare historians. By recognizing the experience of
the enslaved poor and military in the evolution of medicine, it
gives in part a voice to those who usually appear as a statistic
while the clinicians are lauded.
*British Society for the History of Medicine*
Using historiographical techniques developed by Black feminist
scholars, Downs’ well-crafted narrative shifts the focus from the
actions of individual physicians to the scaffolding that their
research was built upon. It carries us from the crowded conditions
on slave ships and prisons to filthy battlefields to plantations,
reminding us that the data physicians used to develop theories of
disease transmission, develop medical procedures, and recommend
public health measures was built on a scaffolding of unacknowledged
bodies belonging to soldiers, colonial subjects, and enslaved
persons.
*The Watermark*
Downs makes a strong argument that epidemiology (and much else in
modern medicine) stemmed from close observation of non-European
populations under conditions of European oppression: in slave
ships, on colonial plantations, and in armies.
*The Tyee*
Maladies of Empire puts the public health of the U.S. early
republic, antebellum, and Civil War eras into global context with
that of the British Empire in a transoceanic discourse about
bio-power, race, and medical authority.
*Journal of the Early Republic*
Downs’ analysis is innovative and his argument is convincing,
buttressed by the wealth of physicians’ reports, correspondence,
and medical journals…The book is a fantastic resource for students
of medicine and history at any level, as the writing is clear and
accessible, and for scholars interested in the global history of
disease, especially in the era of COVID-19.
*Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History*
Maladies of Empire is the best kind of transnational history—one
that moves seamlessly across space and time, while drawing
intricate connections about medical knowledge production in the
critical field of epidemiology. Written in accessible prose, this
timely book challenges readers to look closely at those hidden
figures whose lives contributed to the development of modern
medicine.
*Civil War History*
If you are an aficionado of medical history, and of writers who try
to set the record straight, this is a book for you.
*Stat*
Downs has succeeded in adding an important new work to medical
historiography by linking colonialism, slavery, and war, topics
usually examined separately, and demonstrating persuasively that in
the development of epidemiology, they are not separate at all, but
inextricable.
*Southwestern Historical Quarterly*
True world history, ranging from India and the Crimea to Jamaica.
Turning the history of epidemiology on its head, inspired by Black
feminist theory and criticism, Downs argues…‘how slavery is
imprinted on the DNA of epidemiology.’
*New West Indian Guide*
Slavery pervades Downs’s book. This theme is presented in an
accessible and emotional tone, often transporting the reader to the
underbelly of a slave ship or to the shadow of the hickory tree
amidst a cotton plantation, to better situate the reader in the
realities of forgotten human experiences that informed their
contributions to epidemiology.
*Imperial & Global Forum*
An engaging narrative that provides valuable insights into the
emergence of modern medicine and science…By elucidating the origins
of epidemiology, Maladies of Empire allows public health officials
to question whether their methods have any lingering traces of
unequal power and control while affording scholars the opportunity
to consider the ways in which health and medicine intersected with
slavery, empire, and war in the past.
*Journal of World History*
A must-read book for historians interested in the intersection of
the history of medicine, slavery, and other forms of unfreedom.
Downs’s talent for storytelling also makes this book compelling
reading for students and lay readers alike.
*Black Perspectives*
A page-turner…Downs’ peer-reviewed book is an asset to novices as
well as public health experts.
*The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa*
Maladies of Empire leaves the reader with a greater appreciation
for the people left out of traditional medical histories, some
unforgettable stories, and many thought-provoking questions.
*North Carolina Historical Review*
Maladies of Empire demonstrates the benefits of scholarship that
crosses national and imperial historiographies, as well as the
value of recovering aspects of lives only glimpsed in the archives.
Downs’s engaging prose and clear argumentation make this book
accessible to an undergraduate audience, as well as informative to
senior scholars.
*Journal of the Civil War Era*
Jim Downs has written an ambitious book…[It] is a significant
achievement for the sheer number of cases of colonial medical
experimentation and epidemiological studies that it brings to our
attention and for shifting the focus of the social history of
epidemiology to the colonies. It will become a vital text in
historical and contemporary discussions on race, medicine, and
decolonization.
*American Historical Review*
Applying the study of history to medicine can often be
uncomfortable, so I had some trepidation as I picked up Maladies of
Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine by
Jim Downs. The title certainly grabbed my attention; did these
events really transform medicine? After reading this provocative
book, it is hard to argue otherwise.
*Journal of Medical Regulation*
A more compelling read than any textbook, Maladies of Empire
illuminates the main characters of the complex and ethically
fraught story of public health’s origins.
*Family Medicine*
Demonstrates the benefits of scholarship that crosses national and
imperial historiographies, as well as the value of recovering
aspects of lives only glimpsed in the archives. Downs’s engaging
prose and clear argumentation make this book accessible to an
undergraduate audience, as well as informative to senior
scholars.
*Journal of the Civil War Era*
An impactful and innovative effort by the author to apply
techniques used in critical race and ethnicity, colonial history,
and black feminist critical theory to re-center historical medical
narratives…will hopefully stir new conversations in the methodology
and theory of medical history and narrative-forming.
*World History Connected*
Downs makes use of a range of evidence…to delve into transimperial
networks of exchange and knowledge production. Furthermore, he
expertly synthesizes the scholarship of multiple fields within
history of medicine… [the author’s] most valuable intervention into
these fields lies in his adoption of Black feminist approaches to
spotlighting the labors of washermen, laundresses, and figures like
the ‘Native dressers’ at the Calcutta General Hospital, whose toil
and suffering from disease became the basis of epidemiology.
*Isis*
Downs has written an eye-popping study of the history of infectious
diseases, how they spread, and especially how they have been
thwarted by experimentation on the bodies of soldiers, slaves, and
colonial subjects. For three centuries medicine transformed science
and human longevity by knowledge garnered from battlefields, slave
ships, and mass migrations of vulnerable people. This is a timely,
brilliant book about some of the brutal ironies in the story of
medical progress. Our health today owes so much to the blood and
suffering of nameless predecessors.
*David W. Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Frederick
Douglass: Prophet of Freedom*
In this brilliant and timely book, Jim Downs uncovers the origins
of epidemiology in slavery, colonialism, and war. Controlling large
populations through violence and burgeoning state bureaucracies
allowed for new insights into the genesis and spread of human
disease. A most original global history, this book is required
reading for historians, medical researchers, and really anyone
interested in the origins of modern medicine.
*Sven Beckert, author of the Bancroft Prize–winning Empire of
Cotton: A Global History*
Maladies of Empire is a major contribution to the ongoing
investigation of the impact of slavery and colonialism on the
modern world. Jim Downs shows how studies of exploited groups
helped scientists understand the spread and treatment of infectious
disease. At a time when epidemiologists are rightly lauded for
their work in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, Downs calls on us
not to forget the role, without their consent, of the long
forgotten enslaved, colonized, and imprisoned in the development
and global dissemination of medical knowledge.
*Eric Foner, author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War
and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution*
Maladies of Empire shifts the site of medical knowledge from
European cities to the international slave trade, colonial lands
and wars, and the resulting movement of populations. This vivid and
brilliant analysis of these critical sites fundamentally changes
our views of the origins of epidemiology and the transnational flow
of medical knowledge about disease transmission. This excellent
work will surely become required reading for historians of
medicine, disease, and empire.
*Evelynn M. Hammonds, coeditor of The Nature of
Difference*
In this meticulously researched and beautifully written work, Jim
Downs transforms our understanding of the relationship between the
history of medicine, colonialism, and the institution of slavery.
Maladies of Empire illuminates the crucial connections between
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century comprehension of disease and the
evidence gathered from captive Africans, enslaved plantation
workers, and soldiers throughout the Atlantic world. Charting the
origins of modern epidemiology in the inequities of forced labor,
Downs makes foundational contributions to the histories of
medicine, colonialism, and slavery. Everyone interested in the
connections between race and disease should read Maladies of
Empire.
*Jennifer L. Morgan, author of Reckoning with Slavery*
A powerful account of the intertwined histories of medicine and
empire, within a truly global framework. Simultaneously intimate
and sweeping, Maladies of Empire reveals the human side of the
development of epidemiology. Inverting the traditional focus on
medical men, Downs puts soldiers, prisoners, and enslaved people at
the heart of the rise of scientific medicine, providing a
compelling account of how our modern-day tools of epidemiology were
shaped by war, slavery, and colonialism.
*Erica Charters, author of Disease, War, and the Imperial
State*
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