Building the worlds that kill us : : disease, death, and inequality in American history

Title Building the worlds that kill us : : disease, death, and inequality in American history
Names Rosner, David.
Markowitz, Gerald E. Author
Book Number DB126225
Title Status In Process
Language English
Annotation "Building the Worlds that Kill Us traces the historical development of health as a 'product' of industry, economic advance, globalization, and social inequality. Diseases of the past are emblematic of the changing physical, economic, and ideological realities of American culture at any moment. For example, the conventional wisdom holds that the classic infectious and communicable diseases of the nineteenth century-typhoid, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis-were products of an urbanizing, industrializing society that jammed people into tenements, left them with outdoor plumbing, and polluted the water supply. But rather than products of an unavoidable physical environment created by an urbanizing, industrializing world, Rosner and Markowitz argue they are emblematic of American culture and its ideological and social values. How did these values determine that conditions for some could be sacrificed for the wealth of others? Inevitably, Americans were making social decision about who shall live and who shall die. Popular ideas of personal or community 'worthiness'-who were the 'truly' needy and who were 'unworthy' or 'undeserving'-shaped our ideas that disease was linked to morality, which in turn created institutions that served the wealthy and the poor, the immigrant and the native born American, the black and the white, indigenous populations and those of European backgrounds unequally. Health and disease are a lens through which to see our changing social order and the intellectual and physical landscape. From colonialism to industrialism, plastics to pollution, the authors chart the development of new diseases and occupational afflictions as they keep pace with an advancing America over four hundred years."-- Provided by publisher.
Medium Digital Books
Local Subject Informational works
World History - 900W
Social sciences - 300
Medicine & Health - 610
LC Subject Medicine - United States - History
Public health - United States - History
Equality - United States - History
Medical ethics - History
Nonfiction
Call Number 610.973 ANF
Publication Info Washington, D.C. : National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress,
Original Publication Recorded from: New York : Columbia University Press, 2024. 9780231553803
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