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Why did the world's nations fight the Covid-19 pandemic in such different ways and with such varying results?
List of contents
Introduction: One Threat, Many Responses; 1. Science, Politics, and History: Do They Explain the Variety of Approaches to Covid-19?; 2. New Dogs, Old Tricks: Fighting Covid-19 with Ancient Preventive Tactics; 3. The Politics of Prevention: How State and Citizen Interacted, Battling the Virus; 4. What Was Done? Act One of the Pandemic; 5. Why the Preventive Playing Field Was Not Level: Geography, Prosperity, Society; 6. Where and Why Science Mattered: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Herd Immunity, Asymptomatic Carriers, Superspreading, and Masks; 7. From State to Citizen: The Individualization of Public Health; 8. Who is Responsible for Our Health? How Prevention was Enforced; 9. Difficult Decisions in Hard Times: Trade-offs between Being Safe and Solvent; Conclusion: Public Health and Public Goods: The State in a Post-Pandemic World; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index.
About the author
Peter Baldwin is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. His previous publications include Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS (2005), Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830–1930 (1999), and The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle (2014). His latest book, Command and Persuade: Crime, Law, and the State across History is forthcoming in the fall of 2021.
Summary
COVID-19 is the biggest public health and economic disaster of our time. It has posed the same threat across the globe, yet countries responded very differently and some have clearly fared much better than others. Peter Baldwin uncovers why in this first definitive account of the global politics of pandemic.
Additional text
'Brisk and informative, this first draft history of the pandemic is a valuable resource for policymakers and lay readers looking to go beyond the headlines.' Publishers Weekly
