In Time of Plague - 9780814754856

In Time of PlagueThe History and Social Consequences of Lethal Epidemic Disease\nAuthor(s): Arien Mack\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: New York University Press, United States\nImprint: New York University Press\nISBN-13: 9780814754856, 978-0814754856\nSynopsis\nPlague. The word itself is like a blow, connoting misery, miasma and death. Plague takes many forms: influenza, typhus, cholera, the Black Death, and, recently, AIDS. AIDS has reminded us that epidemic infectious disease is not simply a historical phenomenon?or one limited like famine to remote continents ?and is a vivid and painful illustration of how epidemics take place at a number of levels ?biological event, social perception, collective response, and, finally, the individual, the existential and the moral.\n In Time of Plagueexamines the many ways in which catastrophic infectious and contagious diseases are both biologically and socially defined. In the politically charged age of AIDS, In Time of Plague analyzes what pas.