Author: Stephen Coss Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1476783128 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
The “intelligent and sweeping” (Booklist) story of the crucial year that prefigured the events of the American Revolution in 1776—and how Boston’s smallpox epidemic was at the center of it all. In The Fever of 1721 Stephen Coss brings to life the amazing cast of characters who changed the course of medical history, American journalism, and colonial revolution: Cotton Mather, the great Puritan preacher, son of the President of Harvard College; Zabdiel Boylston, a doctor whose name is on one of Boston’s avenues; James Franklin and his younger brother Benjamin; and Elisha Cooke and his protégé Samuel Adams. Coss describes how, during the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try making an incision in the arm of a healthy person and implanting it with smallpox matter. Public outrage forced Boylston into hiding and Mather’s house was firebombed. “In 1721, Boston was a dangerous place…In Coss’s telling, the troubles of 1721 represent a shift away from a colony of faith and toward the modern politics of representative government” (The New York Times Book Review). Elisha Cooke and Samuel Adams were beginning to resist the British in the run-up to the American Revolution. Meanwhile, a bold young printer names James Franklin launched America’s first independent newspaper and landed in jail. His teenaged brother and apprentice, Benjamin Franklin, however, learned his trade in James’s shop and became a father of the Independence movement. One by one, the atmosphere in Boston in 1721 simmered and ultimately boiled over, leading to the full drama of the American Revolution. “Fascinating, informational, and pleasing to read…Coss’s gem of colonial history immerses readers into eighteenth-century Boston and introduces a collection of fascinating people and intriguing circumstances” (Library Journal, starred review).
Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 9780809078219 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet little is known about it. Fenn reveals how deeply "variola" affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. Illustrations.
Author: David K. Randall Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393609464 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
A spine-chilling saga of virulent racism, human folly, and the ultimate triumph of scientific progress. For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn’t noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin—a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong’s tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed ten million lives worldwide. To local press, railroad barons, and elected officials, such a possibility was inconceivable—or inconvenient. As they mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, ending the career of one of the most brilliant scientists in the nation in the process, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save a city that refused to be rescued. Spearheading a relentless crusade for sanitation, Blue and his men patrolled the squalid streets of fast-growing San Francisco, examined gory black buboes, and dissected diseased rats that put the fate of the entire country at risk. In the tradition of Erik Larson and Steven Johnson, Randall spins a spellbinding account of Blue’s race to understand the disease and contain its spread—the only hope of saving San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate.
Author: Katherine A. Foss Publisher: UMass + ORM ISBN: 1613767781 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
When an epidemic strikes, media outlets are central to how an outbreak is framed and understood. While reporters construct stories intended to inform the public and convey essential information from doctors and politicians, news narratives also serve as historical records, capturing sentiments, responses, and fears throughout the course of the epidemic. Constructing the Outbreak demonstrates how news reporting on epidemics communicates more than just information about pathogens; rather, prejudices, political agendas, religious beliefs, and theories of disease also shape the message. Analyzing seven epidemics spanning more than two hundred years—from Boston's smallpox epidemic and Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic in the eighteenth century to outbreaks of diphtheria, influenza, and typhoid in the early twentieth century—Katherine A. Foss discusses how shifts in journalism and medicine influenced the coverage, preservation, and fictionalization of different disease outbreaks. Each case study highlights facets of this interplay, delving into topics such as colonization, tourism, war, and politics. Through this investigation into what has been preserved and forgotten in the collective memory of disease, Foss sheds light on current health care debates, like vaccine hesitancy.
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1442443073 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 214
Book Description
It's late summer 1793, and the streets of Philadelphia are abuzz with mosquitoes and rumors of fever. Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mounting. Now they include Polly, the serving girl at the Cook Coffeehouse. But fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook doesn't get a moment to mourn the passing of her childhood playmate. New customers have overrun her family's coffee shop, located far from the mosquito-infested river, and Mattie's concerns of fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of growing her family's small business into a thriving enterprise. But when the fever begins to strike closer to home, Mattie's struggle to build a new life must give way to a new fight-the fight to stay alive.
Author: P. O'Connell Pearson Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1534404120 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 213
Book Description
“A truly inspiring read.” —Booklist (starred review) “A solid account of women’s contributions as aviators during World War II.” —Kirkus Reviews In the tradition of Hidden Figures, debut author Patricia Pearson offers a beautifully written account of the remarkable but often forgotten group of female fighter pilots who answered their country’s call in its time of need during World War II. At the height of World War II, the US Army Airforce faced a desperate need for skilled pilots—but only men were allowed in military airplanes, even if the expert pilots who were training them to fly were women. Through grit and pure determination, 1,100 of these female pilots—who had to prove their worth time and time again—were finally allowed to ferry planes from factories to bases, to tow targets for live ammunition artillery training, to test repaired planes and new equipment, and more. Though the Women Airforce Service Pilots lived on military bases, trained as military pilots, wore uniforms, marched in review, and sometimes died violently in the line of duty, they were civilian employees and received less pay than men doing the same jobs and no military benefits, not even for burials. Their story is one of patriotism, the power of positive attitudes, the love of flying, and the willingness to serve others with no concern for personal gain.
Author: G. Williams Publisher: Springer ISBN: 0230293190 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 453
Book Description
The story of the rise and fall of smallpox, one of the most savage killers in the history of mankind, and the only disease ever to be successfully exterminated (30 years ago next year) by a public health campaign.
Author: Jo N. Hays Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1851096639 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 526
Book Description
Balancing current and historical issues, this volume of essays covers the most significant worldwide epidemics from the Black Death to AIDS. Great pandemics have resulted in significant death tolls and major social disruption. Other "virgin soil" epidemics have struck down large percentages of populations that had no previous contact with newly introduced microbes. Written by a specialist in the history of science and medicine, the essays in this volume discuss pandemics and epidemics affecting Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, covering diseases in ancient times to the present. Each entry combines biological and social information to form a picture of the significance of epidemics that have shaped world history. The essays cover the areas of major pandemics, virgin soil epidemics, disruptive shocks, and epidemics of symbolic interest. Included are facts about what an epidemic was, where and when it occurred, how contemporaries reacted, and the unresolved historical issues remaining. This fascinating material is written at a level suitable for scholars and the general public.
Author: C. H. Dalton Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1592404308 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
"Read it with someone you hate." —Jon Stewart A hilarious look at the races of the world—capturing the proud history and bright future of racism in one handy, authoritative, and deeply offensive volume. Whether you’re laughing, cringing, or some combination of the two, A Practical Guide to Racism is sure to entertain. According to C. H. Dalton, a professor of racialist studies and an expert on inferior people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, and sexual preferences, everyone should be hated. A Practical Guide to Racism takes a satirical look at long-standing stereotypes and draws them out to their mad and illogical conclusions. At its core, this deeply sarcastic body of evidence suggests that, by the standards of racism, every race is terrible in its own right. A Practical Guide to Racism contains sparkling bits of wisdom on such subjects as: · The good life enjoyed by blacks, who shuffle through life unhindered by the white man's burdens, to become accomplished athletes, rhyme smiths, and dominoes champions · A close look at the bizarre, sweet-smelling race known as women, who are not very good at anything - especially ruling the free world · The sad story of the industrious, intelligent Jews, whose entire reputation is sullied by their taste for the blood of Christian babies · A crucial manual to Arabs, a people so sensitive they are liable to blow up at any time. Literally.
Author: William McNeill Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0307773663 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
The history of disease is the history of humankind: an interpretation of the world as seen through the extraordinary impact—political, demographic, ecological, and psychological—of disease on cultures. "A book of the first importance, a truly revolutionary work." —The New Yorker From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, Plagues and Peoples is "a brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews). Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter was added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his introduction to this edition. Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is essential reading—that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening.
Author: Stephen Coss
Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn
Author: David K. Randall
Author: Katherine A. Foss
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Author: P. O'Connell Pearson
Author: G. Williams
Author: Jo N. Hays
Author: C. H. Dalton
Author: William McNeill