Synopses & Reviews
By comparing institutions in Hawai'i and Louisiana designed to incarcerate individuals with a highly stigmatized disease, Colonizing Leprosy provides an innovative study of the complex relationship between U.S. imperialism and public health policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the Kalaupapa Settlement in Moloka'i and the U.S. National Leprosarium in Carville, Michelle Moran shows not only how public health policy emerged as a tool of empire in America's colonies, but also how imperial ideologies and racial attitudes shaped practices at home.
Review
"This intelligent, nuanced, and carefully argued study approaches the U.S. experience with leprosy in a productive and revealing way. . . . Provides a useful model for doing comparative history. It is an excellent addition to the literature on modern empire."
-- American Historical Review
Review
"An excellent and well written contribution to the literature on public health and leprosy."
Medical History
Review
This innovative and rewarding book does what many others promise but rarely achieve.
--Warwick Anderson, author of Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines
Review
A scholarly tour de force, well written and beautifully documented,
Colonizing Leprosy is a superb work. Bravo!
--Howard Markel, director, Center for the History of Medicine, The University of Michigan
Review
"A fascinating study of this complicated and misunderstood disease. Bringing together narratives of diplomatic, medical, religious, and political history, [Moran] skillfully weaves a tapestry."
International History Review
Review
"Well written, draws on a broad range of primary sources, and deserves to be read as a cautionary tale of the destructive paring of stigma and paternalism, whether colonial or not."
Journal of American History
About the Author
Michelle T. Moran teaches in the Core Humanities Program and the Department of History at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Table of Contents
"A terrific case study of the complex interplay between core and periphery in the history of U.S. imperial public health. . . . A marvelous rendering of a complex story."
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History "An important contribution to growing literatures on US imperial public health and on how empire functioned as a crucible for modern state-building. . . . A terrific case study. . . . Convincing and compelling."
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History "A fascinating study of this complicated and misunderstood disease. Bringing together narratives of diplomatic, medical, religious, and political history, [Moran] skillfully weaves a tapestry."
International History Review "Well written, draws on a broad range of primary sources, and deserves to be read as a cautionary tale of the destructive paring of stigma and paternalism, whether colonial or not."
Journal of American History "An excellent and well written contribution to the literature on public health and leprosy."
Medical History "This intelligent, nuanced, and carefully argued study approaches the U.S. experience with leprosy in a productive and revealing way. . . . Provides a useful model for doing comparative history. It is an excellent addition to the literature on modern empire."
-- American Historical Review This innovative and rewarding book does what many others promise but rarely achieve.
--Warwick Anderson, author of Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines A scholarly tour de force, well written and beautifully documented, Colonizing Leprosy is a superb work. Bravo!
--Howard Markel, director, Center for the History of Medicine, The University of Michigan