New Books In Public Health

Pandemic Perspectives 8: Covid and the Embrace of the Biological World

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to renowned UC San Diego neurophilosopher Patricia Churchl...

Pandemic Perspectives 7: Covid 19 Political Lessons from Portugal

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Portuguese Member of Parliament and internationally ren...

Rod Tanchanco, "First Patients: The Incredible True Stories of Pioneer Patients" (First Hawk, 2022)

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Dr. Rod Tanchanco, a busy internist and clinical researcher, began digging into old journals looking for a deeper history of renowned medical inn...

Jeff Sebo, "Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes" (Oxford UP, 2022)

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020, COVID-19, the Australia bushfires, and other global threats served as vivid reminders that human and nonhuman fates are increasingly linked. ...

Maia Szalavitz, "Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction" (Hachette, 2021)

15 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction (Hachette Go, 2021) tells a long-running, but largely unknown, story o...

Robert A Jacobs, "Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha" (Yale UP, 2022)

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Jacob’s book Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale UP, 2022) re‑envisions the history of the Cold War as a slow nuclear war, fought ...

Pandemic Perspectives 6: COVID and the Importance of Political Understanding

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to renowned University of Cambridge political theorist Joh...

Pandemic Perspectives 6: COVID and the Importance of Political Understanding

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to renowned University of Cambridge political theorist Joh...

The Future of Life Expectancy: A Discussion with Angus Deaton

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University and his wife Professor Anne Case published a paper highlighting the rising mortality rate amon...

Pauline Boss, "The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic" (W.W. Norton, 2021)

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How do we begin to cope with loss that cannot be resolved? The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even...

Pandemic Perspectives 5: Necessarily Global--How the Pandemic Forces Us To Think Bigger

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Andy Hoffman, the dynamic and innovative business profes...

The Future of Delusions: A Discussion with Lisa Bortolotti

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The accusation “you’re deluded” is often used as something of a cheap shot intended to silence an opponent in debate. But what is the nature of ...

Zeynep Pamuk, "Politics and Expertise: How to Use Science in a Democratic Society" (Princeton UP, 2021)

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, ...

Pandemic Perspectives 4: Science, Societal Values and COVID

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Lorraine Daston, director emerita of the Max Planck In...

Alexander Zaitchik, "Owning the Sun: A People's History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines" (Counterpoint, 2022)

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Although the dividing line between private life and public responsibilities can never be definite and clear, there is a moral threshold which is cross...

Lucy Ward, "The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great Defied a Deadly Virus" (ONEWorld, 2022)

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Within living memory, smallpox was a dreaded disease. Over human history, it has killed untold millions. In the eighteenth century, as epidemics swept...

Pandemic Perspectives 3: A Conversation with Samuel Moyn

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence a...

Howard Burton, "Pandemic Perspectives: A Filmmaker's Journey in 10 Essays" (Open Agenda, 2022)

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Howard Burton has been talking to very wise people for decades--scientists, historians, political thinkers, philosophers, etc. When Covid "hit" he was...

Pardis Sabeti and Lara Salahi, "Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic, With a New Preface and Epilogue" (Harvard UP, 2021)

18 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As we saw with the Ebola outbreak--and the disastrous early handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic--a lack of preparedness, delays, and system-...

Understanding the Drivers of Vaccine Acceptance in Southeast Asia

18 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Vaccines have controlled or even eradicated some of the world’s most serious diseases. Throughout the last century and up until recently with the CO...

Pandemic Perspectives 2: A Conversation with Stephen Scherer

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Stephen Scherer, Chief of Research at Toronto's Hospita...

Carl Erik Fisher, "The Urge: Our History of Addiction" (Penguin, 2022)

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat i...

Pandemic Perspectives 1: A Conversation with Miguel Nicolelis

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this first Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis w...

John Zerzan, "When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics" (Feral House, 2021)

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

These are dark and darkening times, challenging us to look deeper to grasp the roots and dynamics of the looming civilizational crisis. Chronic illnes...

Sydney A. Halpern, "Dangerous Medicine: The Story Behind Human Experiments with Hepatitis" (Yale UP, 2021)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From 1942 through 1972, American biomedical researchers deliberately infected people with hepatitis. Government-sponsored researchers were attempting ...

Ben Westhoff, "Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic" (Grove Press, 2019)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist whose best-selling 2019 book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest...

Paul A. Offit, "You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation" (Basic Book, 2021)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every medical decision—whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery—is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life: From B...

Paul A. Offit, "You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation" (Basic Book, 2021)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every medical decision—whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery—is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life: From B...

Charles Vidich, "Germs at Bay: Politics, Public Health, and American Quarantine" (Praeger, 2021)

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Quarantine, as an invention of man, is the most primitive and universal instrument of defense against contagious disease epidemics. Almost universall...

Keith Wailoo, "Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store...

Jennifer Scheper Hughes, "The Church of the Dead: The Epidemic of 1576 and the Birth of Christianity in the Americas" (NYU Press, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Church of the Dead: The Epidemic of 1576 and the Birth of Christianity in the Americas (NYU Press, 2021) tells the story of the founding of Amer...

Luke Fitzmaurice and Maria Bargh, "Stepping Up: COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga (Huia Publishers, 2021)

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stepping Up: COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga (Huia Publishers, 2021) discusses the roadside checkpoints that were set up by Māori to protect...

Brendan Borrell, "The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine" (Mariner Books, 2021)

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Heroic science. Chaotic politics. Billionaire entrepreneurs. Award-winning journalist Brendan Borrell brings the defining story of our times alive thr...

Peter A. Swenson, "Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in American Medicine" (Yale UP, 2021)

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tracing the dramatic conflicts both inside organized medicine and between the medical profession and the larger society over quality, equality, and ec...

COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy in Japan

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-vaccination movements pose an increasing threat to global public health, but what of vaccine hesitancy? Join us for a discussion on the effects o...

Amy C. Sullivan, "Opioid Reckoning: Love, Loss, and Redemption in the Rehab State" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amy C. Sullivan explores the complexity of America’s opioid epidemic through firsthand accounts of people grappling with the reverberating effects o...

Aro Velmet, "Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World" (Oxford UP, 2020)

31 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aro Velmet's Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Oxford UP, 2020) is a complex history of the Pasteur Institut...

Sarah S. Richardson, "The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The idea that a woman may leave a biological trace on her gestating offspring has long been a commonplace folk intuition and a matter of scientific in...

Alison Ritter, "Drug Policy" (Routledge, 2021)

14 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Taking a multidisciplinary perspective (including public health, sociology, criminology, and political science amongst others), and using examples fro...

Priya Fielding-Singh, "How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America" (Little Brown Spark, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more than in how we eat. From her years of field research, sociologist and ethnograp...

Noémi Tousignant, "Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal" (Duke UP, 2018)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is “capacity”? In science research and health interventions, it typically refers to the relative availability of equipment, infrastructure, p...

David A. B. Murray, "Living with HIV in Post-crisis Times: Beyond the Endgame" (Lexington Books, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past decade, effective prevention and treatment policies have resulted in global health organizations claiming that the end of the HIV/AIDS c...

Julia Bahner, "Sexual Citizenship and Disability: Understanding Sexual Support in Policy, Practice and Theory" (Routledge, 2021)

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What does ‘sexual citizenship’ mean in practice for people with mobility impairments who may need professional support to engage in sexual activit...

Diego Armus and Pablo Gómez, "The Gray Zones of Medicine: Healers and History in Latin America" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Edited by Diego Armus and Pablo Gómez, The Gray Zones of Medicine: Healers and History in Latin America (University of Pittsburgh Press 2021) tell ...

Kant Patel and Mark E. Rushefsky, "The Opioid Epidemic in the United States: Missed Opportunities and Policy Failures" (Routledge, 2021)

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The current opioid epidemic in the United States began in the mid-1990s with the introduction of a new drug, OxyContin, viewed as a safer and more eff...

Rocio Gomez, "Silver Veins, Dusty Lungs: Mining, Water, and Public Health in Zacatecas, 1835-1946" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Mexico environmental struggles have been fought since the nineteenth century in such places as Zacatecas, where United States and European mining i...

Kevin A. Sabet, "Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn't Want You to Know" (Forefront Books, 2021)

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Called the “quarterback of the new anti-drug movement,” Kevin Sabet received his Ph.D. in social policy from the University of Oxford and has wo...

Anne Pollock, "Sickening: Anti-Black Racism and Health Disparities in the United States" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An event-by-event look at how institutionalized racism harms the health of African Americans in the twenty-first century A crucial component of anti-B...

Kyle Harper, "Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History" (Princeton UP, 2021)

01 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kyle Harper's book Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History (Princeton UP, 2021) is a monumental history of humans and their ...

Stepping in to Improve Women’s and Babies’ Lives in Southeast Asia

23 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In September-October 2021, SSEAC Stories will be hosting a mini-series of podcasts exploring the role that research plays in understanding and advoc...

Donald A. Barr, "Crossing the American Health Care Chasm: Finding the Path to Bipartisan Collaboration in National Health Care Policy" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)

30 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why is there such a deep partisan division within the United States regarding how health care should be organized and financed and how can we encourag...

Beverly A. Tsacoyianis, "Disturbing Spirits: Mental Illness, Trauma, and Treatment in Modern Syria and Lebanon" (U Notre Dame Press, 2021)

19 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Disturbing Spirits: Mental Illness, Trauma, and Treatment in Modern Syria and Lebanon by Beverly A. Tsacoyianis (University of Notre Dame Press, 2021...

Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu, "Tuberculosis: The Singapore Experience, 1867-2018" (Routledge, 2021)

16 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tuberculosis: The Singapore Experience, 1867-2018 (Routledge, 2021), co-written by Dr. Loh, a historian and Dr. Hsu Li Yang, a medical doctor offers ...

Gowri Vijayakumar, "At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global AIDS Response" (Stanford UP, 2021)

10 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-1990s, experts predicted that India would face the world's biggest AIDS epidemic by 2000. Though a crisis at this scale never fully materia...

Chinmay Tumbe, "The Age Of Pandemics (1817-1920): How They Shaped India and the World" (Harper Collins, 2020)

02 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of the Economic and Business History channel I spoke with Dr. Chinmay Tumbe, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute ...

Chris A. Barcelos, "Distributing Condoms and Hope: The Racialized Politics of Youth Sexual Health" (U California Press, 2020)

23 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Distributing Condoms and Hope: The Racialized Politics of Youth Sexual Health (U California Press, 2020) is a feminist ethnographic account of how yo...

Eugene T. Richardson, "Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health" (MIT Press, 2020)

22 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health (MIT Press, 2020), physician-anthropologist Eugene T. Richardson explores how pub...

Karma R. Chávez, "The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance" (U Washington Press, 2021)

16 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As soon as US media and politicians became aware of AIDS in the early 1980s, fingers were pointed not only at the gay community but also at other coun...

Yanzhong Huang, "Toxic Politics: China's Environmental Health Crisis and its Challenge to the Chinese State" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

02 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Popular discussions of China’s growth prospects often focus on the success or failure specific industries. They might address the challenges rising ...

Martin Halliwell, "American Health Crisis: One Hundred Years of Panic, Planning, and Politics" (U California Press, 2021)

11 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Despite enormous advances in medical science and public health education over the last century, access to health care remains a dominant issue in Amer...

Ellen Peters, "Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers" (Oxford UP, 2020)

31 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

To many mathematicians and math enthusiasts, the word "innumeracy" brings to mind popular writing like that of John Allen Paulos. But inequities in ou...

Nicholas Freudenberg, "At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health" (Oxford UP, 2021)

25 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Freedom of choice lies at the heart of American society. Every day, individuals decide what to eat, which doctors to see, who to connect with online, ...

Susan M. Reverby, "Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy" (UNC Press, 2013)

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’...

Mary A. Brazelton, "Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2019)

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Brazelton’s new book, Mass Vaccination: Citizens’ Bodies and State Power in Modern China (Cornell UP, 2019) could hardly be more timely. D...

Tales of Unsung Heroes: How Thailand’s Village Health Volunteers Helped Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On 13 January 2020, Thailand confirmed the first known case of COVID-19 outside of China. As one of the world's most popular tourism destinations, wit...

John Geoffrey Scott and Christian Grov, "The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society" (Routledge, 2021)

16 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Panoramic and provocative in its scope, John Geoffrey Scott and Christian Grov's The Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society (Rou...

Charley E. Willison, "Ungoverned and Out of Sight: Public Health and the Political Crisis of Homelessness in the United States" (Oxford UP, 2021)

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If health policy truly seeks to improve population health and reduce health disparities, addressing homelessness must be a priority. Homelessness is a...

Siobhán Hearne, "Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia" (Oxford UP, 2021)

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Siobhán Hearne's Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford UP, 2021) examines the complex world of commer...

Lukas Engelmann and Christos Lynteris, "Sulphuric Utopias: A History of Maritime Fumigation" (MIT Press, 2020)

26 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As we mark the one-year anniversary of the COIVD-19 pandemic, take the time to listen to this discussion of previous efforts to fight yellow fever, ch...

Mitchell L. Hammond, "Epidemics and the Modern World" (University of Toronto Press, 2020)

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Normally we write blogposts that try to convince you to listen to a conversation with an author about their fascinating book. In the time of COVID-19,...

Xiaoping Fang, "China's Cholera Pandemic: Restructuring Society Under Mao" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward campaign organized millions of Chinese peasants into communes in a misguided attempt to rapidly collectivize agricul...

Imitating Viruses: How Technology Can Help Us Be Better Prepared For Pandemics

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Viruses are not very different from machines that process information, and thus, how the virus functions can be simulated on a computer. This ability ...

Seema Yasmin, "Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)

22 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Can your zip code predict when you will die? Should you space out childhood vaccines? Does talcum powder cause cancer? Why do some doctors recommend e...

Jacob Steere-Williams, "The Filth Disease: Typhoid Fever and the Practices of Epidemiology in Victorian England" (U Rochester Press, 2020)

19 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Typhoid fever is a food- and water-borne infectious disease that was insidious and omnipresent in Victorian Britain. It was one of the most prolific d...

Combating African Swine Fever in Timor-Leste with Associate Professor Paul Hick

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since it first arrived in Asia in 2018, African swine fever virus has caused a devastating pandemic resulting in more than a quarter of the global pig...

Daniel A. Rodriguez, "The Right to Live in Health: Medical Politics in Postindependence Havana" (U North Carolina Press, 2020)

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel A. Rodriguez's history of a newly independent Cuba shaking off the U.S. occupation, The Right to Live in Health: Medical Politics in Postindep...

Thomas Pradeu, "Philosophy of Immunology" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vaccines make us wholly or partly immune to disease, such as Covid-19. But what is it to be immune? What is an immune system, and what does it do? In ...

Ethan Lou, "Field Notes from a Pandemic: A Journey Through a World Suspended" (Signal, 2020)

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We are just over a year from when global news first reported a new type of pneumonia emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A lockdown of Wuhan on Jan...

Saiba Varma, "The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir" (Duke UP, 2020)

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir (Duke UP, 2020), Saiba Varma explores the psychological, ontological, and political entanglem...

Brian Deer, "The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A reporter uncovers the secrets behind the scientific scam of the century.  The news breaks first as a tale of fear and pity. Doctors at a London hos...

M. Nestle and K. Trueman, "Let's Ask Marion: What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health" (U California Press, 2020)

13 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Marion Nestle describes her new book as “a small, quick and dirty reader for the general audience” summarizing some of her biggest and most influe...

Nicholas Bartlett, "Recovering Histories: Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China" (U California Press, 2020)

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Heroin first reached Gejiu, a Chinese city in southern Yunnan known as Tin Capital, in the 1980s. Widespread use of the drug, which for a short period...

Devadas Krishnadas, "Confronting Covid-19: A Strategic Playbook for Leaders and Decision Makers" (MCIA, 2020)

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country around the world in a manner not seen since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and is perhaps one of...

Jeff Levin, "Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity's Two Greatest Institutions" (Oxford UP, 2020)

22 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Though the current political climate might lead one to suspect that religion and medicine make for uncomfortable bedfellows, the two institutions have...

47 Glimpsing COVID: Gael McGill on Data Visualization (GT, JP)

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For this scientific conversation, John is joined once again by Brandeis neuroscientist Gina Turrigiano (think ep 4 Madeline Miller; think ep 2 Addicti...

COVID-19 and Migrant Workers in Southeast Asia: A Discussion with Emeritus Professor Philip Hirsch

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

COVID-19 has had such far-reaching impacts that it can be, and has been, studied from the perspective of almost any academic discipline. For geographe...

Adrian Wooldridge, "The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It" (HarperVia, 2020)

14 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that governments matter again, that competent leadership is the difference between living and dying. A few governme...

Nancy D. Campbell, "OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose" (MIT Press, 2020)

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Reducing harm or shrinking the likelihood of accidental death are remarkably contentions projects—in areas from sex education, to pandemic managemen...

Joshua Gans, "The Pandemic Information Gap and the Brutal Economics of Covid-19" (MIT Press, 2020)

17 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March, a self-isolating and easily distracted economist resolved to take himself in hand. "I decided I would do ...

Japanese Civil Society: Responding to COVID -19 at Home and Abroad with Kamila Szczepanska and Yoko Demelius

15 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international and Japanese NGO communities? How has Japanese humanitarian and development NGOs re...

The Fight Against COVID-19: Humanities Matter Amidst a Pandemic Too

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the world has turned to science for effective solutions. However, using scientific research to influenc...

Dan Royles, "To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle Against HIV/AIDS" (UNC Press, 2020)

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades since it was identified in 1981, HIV/AIDS has devastated African American communities. Members of those communities mobilized to fight ...

Rene Almeling, "GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health" (U California Press, 2020)

15 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rene Almeling’s new book GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health (University of California Press, 2020) provides an in-dep...

John Whysner, "The Alchemy of Disease" (Columbia UP, 2020)

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Since the dawn of the industrial age, we have unleashed a bewildering number of potentially harmful chemicals. But out of this vast array, how do we i...

Jennifer J. Carroll, "Narkomania: Drugs, HIV, and Citizenship in Ukraine" (Cornell UP, 2019)

06 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania: Drugs, HIV, and Citizenship in Ukr...

Jennifer Lisa Koslow, "Exhibiting Health: Public Health Displays in the Progressive Era" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, public health reformers approached the task of ameliorating unsanitary conditions and preventing epidemic diseases wit...

Charles Allan McCoy, "Diseased States: Epidemic Control in Britain and the United States" (U Massachusetts Press, 2020)

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Outbreaks of Ebola, SARS, MERS, and pandemic influenza are brutal reminders of the dangers of infectious disease. Comparing the development of disease...

Mari K. Webel, "The Politics of Disease Control: Sleeping Sickness in Eastern Africa, 1890-1920" (Ohio UP, 2019)

03 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Politics of Disease Control. Sleeping Sickness in Eastern Africa, 1890-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Mari K. Webel tells a history of col...

Kathleen Bachynski, "No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis" (UNC Press, 2019)

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Kathleen Bachynski, Assistant Professor of Public Health at Muhlenberg College, and author of No Game for Boys to Play: The His...

Luke Messac, "No More to Spend: Neglect and the Construction of Scarcity in Malawi's History of Health Care" (Oxford UP, 2020)

16 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dismal spending on government health services is often considered a necessary consequence of a low per-capita GDP, but are poor patients in poor count...