Synopses & Reviews
Challenging traditional approaches to medical history,
Disease in the History of Modern Latin America advances understandings of disease as a social and cultural construction in Latin America. This innovative collection provides a vivid look at the latest research in the cultural history of medicine through insightful essays about how diseaseandmdash;whether it be cholera or aids, leprosy or mental illnessandmdash;was experienced and managed in different Latin American countries and regions, at different times from the late nineteenth century to the present.
Based on the idea that the meanings of sicknessandmdash;and healthandmdash;are contestable and subject to controversy, Disease in the History of Modern Latin America displays the richness of an interdisciplinary approach to social and cultural history. Examining diseases in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, the contributors explore the production of scientific knowledge, literary metaphors for illness, domestic public health efforts, and initiatives shaped by the agendas of international agencies. They also analyze the connections between ideas of sexuality, disease, nation, and modernity; the instrumental role of certain illnesses in state-building processes; welfare efforts sponsored by the state and led by the medical professions; and the boundaries between individual and state responsibilities regarding sickness and health. Diego Armusandrsquo;s introduction contextualizes the essays within the history of medicine, the history of public health, and the sociocultural history of disease.
Contributors. Diego Armus, Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Kathleen Elaine Bliss, Ann S. Blum, Marilia Coutinho, Marcus Cueto, Patrick Larvie, Gabriela Nouzeilles, Diana Obregandoacute;n, Nancy Lays Stepan, Ann Zulawski
Review
andldquo;This book is an extraordinary contribution that brings together the very best scholars of Latin American public health and social history. Its emphasis on the social conditions that lead to epidemic disease as well as the political and social forces that shape practice is a welcome corrective to a literature still too often dominated by positivist traditions.andrdquo;andmdash;David Rosner, director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Columbia University
Review
andrdquo;I was fascinated by all the essays in Disease in the History of Modern Latin America. They are theoretically aware and sophisticated while they remain accessible and oriented to the complexity of historical experience. This collection is a powerful argument for the richness of an interdisciplinary approach to cultural history.andrdquo;andmdash;Daniel James, author of Doandntilde;a Maria's Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity
Synopsis
Edited volume that takes a non-traditional approach to the history of medicine in Latin America, and emphasizes the cultural and social construction of disease.
About the Author
“This book is an extraordinary contribution that brings together the very best scholars of Latin American public health and social history. Its emphasis on the social conditions that lead to epidemic disease as well as the political and social forces that shape practice is a welcome corrective to a literature still too often dominated by positivist traditions.”—David Rosner, director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Columbia University”I was fascinated by all the essays in Disease in the History of Modern Latin America. They are theoretically aware and sophisticated while they remain accessible and oriented to the complexity of historical experience. This collection is a powerful argument for the richness of an interdisciplinary approach to cultural history.”—Daniel James, author of Doña Maria's Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity
Table of Contents
Disease in the historiography of modern Latin America / Diego Armus -- "The only serious terror in these regions" : malaria control in the Brazilian Amazon / Nancy Leys Stepan -- An imaginary plague in turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires : hysteria, discipline, and languages of the body / Gabriela Nouzeilles -- Tropical medicine in Brazil : the case of chagas' disease / Marilia Coutinho -- Tango, gender, and tuberculosis in Buenos Aires, 1900-1940 / Diego Armus -- The state, physicians, and leprosy in modern Colombia / Diana Obregâon -- Revolution, the scatological way : the Rockefeller Foundation's hookworm campaign in 1920s Mexico / Anne-Emanuelle Birn -- Between risk and confession : state and popular perspectives of syphilis infection in revolutionary Mexico / Katherine Elaine Bliss -- Dying of sadness : hospitalism and child welfare in Mexico City, 1920-1940 / Ann S. Blum -- Mental illness and democracy in Bolivia : the Manicomio Pacheco, 1935-1950 / Ann Zulawski -- Stigma and blame during an epidemic : cholera in Peru, 1991 / Marcos Cueto -- Nation, science, and sex : AIDS and the new Brazilian sexuality / Patrick Larvie.