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Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu

by Philip Alcabes

Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu Cover

ISBN13: 9781586486181
ISBN10: 1586486187
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The average individual is far more likely to die in a car accident than from a communicable disease…yet we are still much more fearful of the epidemic. Even at our most level-headed, the thought of an epidemic can inspire terror. As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in question—or the actual risks of contagion—but by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood.

Alcabes examines epidemics through history to show how they reflect the particular social and cultural anxieties of their times. From Typhoid Mary to bioterrorism, as new outbreaks are unleashed or imagined, new fears surface, new enemies are born, and new behaviors emerge. Dread dissects the fascinating story of the imagined epidemic: the one that we think is happening, or might happen; the one that disguises moral judgments and political agendas, the one that ultimately expresses our deepest fears.

Review:

"According to Alcabes, an essayist and expert in public health, 'epidemics fascinate us'; hopeful projection or not, his study provides enough gruesome details and unexpected sidelights to captivate history fans. Looking first at the plague that swept Europe in recurring waves from 1300 to 1700 ('the model for the epidemic'), Alcabes sorts through the widespread confusion over its cause and method of transmission. Rubbing up against theories of 'contagion, intemperate air, poisoned water, astrological influence' and 'deviltry,' accounts of brutal pogroms and apocalyptic dread, Alcabes makes the science behind the history-as in a description of infected fleas regurgitating the plague bacteria into a victim's system-just as gripping. Cholera reached epidemic proportions in England in 1831, when efforts to clean sewage from the streets poisoned the Thames; at the time, experts were focused on foul air, not foul water. Turning to the present, Alcabes chastises the use of 'epidemic' for behavioral issues like obesity or teen sex, and the panic over isolated events like the Anthrax outbreak (only 22 cases), while 9 million cases of tuberculosis go untreated every year. Showing how even epidemics hinge on societal attitudes and expectations, Alcabes presents an engrossing, revealing account of the relationship between progress and plague." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

Helen Epstein, author of Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa

"In this richly detailed and fascinating book, Alcabes explores the meaning of epidemics throughout history, and what our fears of them tell us about ourselves. Like Susan Sontag, he reminds us just how hard it is to see these diseases for what they are."

Barry Glassner, author of The Gospel of Food and The Culture of Fear

“Exceptionally insightful and persuasively argued, Dread is at once a chronicle of the uses and (more often) abuses of the term epidemic and an antidote to the modern tendency to transmute fears of strangers and societal and personal failings into diseases.”

Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

"Dread is an insightful education in how art and science inform each other in a cultural synergy that, even today, keeps us from discerning what is medicine and what is myth. The word “genius” has been debased by frequent use, but this is a work of undeniable genius in the most exalted sense. What Stephen Jay Gould did for natural history, Philip Alcabes has done for public health."

Synopsis:

Why we invent epidemic threats, create false terrors, and let irrational anxiety take over our lives

Synopsis:

The average individual is far more likely to die in a car accident than from a communicable disease…yet we are still much more fearful of the epidemic. Even at our most level-headed, the thought of an epidemic can inspire terror. As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in questionor the actual risks of contagionbut by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood.

Alcabes examines epidemics through history to show how they reflect the particular social and cultural anxieties of their times. From Typhoid Mary to bioterrorism, as new outbreaks are unleashed or imagined, new fears surface, new enemies are born, and new behaviors emerge. Dread dissects the fascinating story of the imagined epidemic: the one that we think is happening, or might happen; the one that disguises moral judgments and political agendas, the one that ultimately expresses our deepest fears.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
NYC_Mom, May 1, 2009 (view all comments by NYC_Mom)
This is a timely and brilliant book. As the panic over swine flu wanes, it's easy to agree with Alcabes's point about our investment in disaster narratives being more powerful than our ability to be rational.

This book comments on the way people and governments have manipulated our fears of disaster for unexpected and non-useful purposes. Selling newspapers, consolidating power, for example. We need to hew to the basics--a good standard of living for everyone. I found this argument really enlightening. Though it is counter-intuitive, Alcabes really persuades, with lots of facts and really good arguments. He covers SARS and AIDS and Obesity and Autism, and more.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781586486181
Subtitle:
How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu
Author:
Alcabes, Philip
Publisher:
PublicAffairs
Subject:
General science
Subject:
General
Subject:
General History
Subject:
History
Subject:
Infectious Diseases
Subject:
Social history
Subject:
Epidemics
Subject:
Fear
Subject:
Health behavior
Subject:
Communicable diseases -- History.
Edition Description:
Trade Cloth
Publication Date:
April 2009
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
312
Dimensions:
9.30x6.50x1.30 in. 1.20 lbs.

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