Pox Americana

Pox Americana
Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2002-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780809078219

A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet little is known about it. Fenn reveals how deeply "variola" affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. Illustrations.

Pox Americana

Pox Americana
Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2002-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1466808047

The astonishing, hitherto unknown truths about a disease that transformed the United States at its birth A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the American Revolution began, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply variola affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. By 1776, when military action and political ferment increased the movement of people and microbes, the epidemic worsened. Fenn's remarkable research shows us how smallpox devastated the American troops at Québec and kept them at bay during the British occupation of Boston. Soon the disease affected the war in Virginia, where it ravaged slaves who had escaped to join the British forces. During the terrible winter at Valley Forge, General Washington had to decide if and when to attempt the risky inoculation of his troops. In 1779, while Creeks and Cherokees were dying in Georgia, smallpox broke out in Mexico City, whence it followed travelers going north, striking Santa Fe and outlying pueblos in January 1781. Simultaneously it moved up the Pacific coast and east across the plains as far as Hudson's Bay. The destructive, desolating power of smallpox made for a cascade of public-health crises and heartbreaking human drama. Fenn's innovative work shows how this mega-tragedy was met and what its consequences were for America.

Pox Americana

Pox Americana
Author: Elizabeth A. Fenn
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2001-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0809078201

Fenn is the first historian to reveal how deeply Variola affected the outcome of the War of Independence, and why it caused a continental epidemic, affecting the lives of virtually everyone in North America from Florida to Alaska."--BOOK JACKET.

Pox Americana

Pox Americana
Author: John Bellamy Foster
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004-08-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781583671115

This volume gathers the work of leading left-wing analysts of imperialism to examine the burning question of our time—the nature and prospects of the U.S. imperial project currently being given shape by war and occupation in the Middle East. Noam Chomsky, Immanuel Wallerstein, Peter Gowan, and others discuss the dynamics at work behind the "War on Terrorism." Their analyses locate recent developments within a longer historical arc, and set out the central questions for research and debate: Is U.S. unilateralism and militarism a sign of the increasing strength of the world's only remaining superpower? Or a desperate response to the erosion of the strategy it developed for ensuring its leadership over the advanced capitalist world during the Cold War? Essays by Barbara Epstein, Amiya Kumar Bagchi and others also examine the prospects for the resistance to imperialism in the United States and globally. Pox Americana brings together a range of insights and perspectives that were originally presented at a conference in Burlington, Vermont, to honor Harry Magdoff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. It is a fitting tribute to Magdoff's pioneering analyses of U.S. imperialism and a testimony to the resilience and fruitfulness of the radical tradition.

Pox Americana

Pox Americana
Author: Elizabeth Anne Fenn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001
Genre: Medicine
ISBN: 9780965031585

Publisher description: A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet we know almost nothing about it. Elizabeth A. Fenn reveals how deeply variola affected the outcome of the war in every colony and the lives of everyone in North America. By 1776, when military action and political ferment increased the movement of people and microbes, the epidemic worsened. Fenn's research shows us how smallpox devastated the American troops at Quebec and kept them at bay during the British occupation of Boston. Soon the disease affected the war in Virginia, where it ravaged slaves who had escaped to join the British forces. During the terrible winter at Valley Forge, General Washington had to decide if and when to attempt the risky inoculation of his troops. In 1779, while Creeks and Cherokees were dying in Georgia, smallpox broke out in Mexico City, whence it followed travelers going north, striking Santa Fe and outlying pueblos in January 1781. Simultaneously it moved up the Pacific coast and east across the plains as far as Hudson's Bay. The destructive, desolating power of smallpox made for a cascade of public-health crises and heartbreaking human drama. Fenn's work shows how this tragedy was met and what its consequences were for America.

Polio

Polio
Author: Thomas Abraham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2018-09-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1787380874

In 1988, the World Health Organization launched a twelve-year campaign to wipe out polio. Thirty years and several billion dollars over budget later, the campaign grinds on, vaccinating millions of children and hoping that each new year might see an end to the disease. But success remains elusive, against a surprisingly resilient virus, an unexpectedly weak vaccine and the vagaries of global politics, meeting with indifference from governments and populations alike. How did an innocuous campaign to rid the world of a crippling disease become a hostage of geopolitics? Why do parents refuse to vaccinate their children against polio? And why have poorly paid door-to-door healthworkers been assassinated? Thomas Abraham reports on the ground in search of answers.

Revolutionary

Revolutionary
Author: Alex Myers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2014-01-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1451663358

“A remarkable novel” (The New York Times) about America’s first female soldier, Deborah Sampson Gannett, who ran away from home in 1782, successfully disguised herself as a man, and fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War. At a time when rigid societal norms seemed absolute, Deborah Sampson risked everything in search of something better. Revolutionary, Alex Myers’s richly imagined and carefully researched debut novel, tells the story of a fierce-tempered young woman turned celebrated solider and the remarkable courage, hope, fear, and heartbreak that shaped her odyssey during the birth of a nation. After years of indentured servitude in a sleepy Massachusetts town, Deborah chafes under the oppression of colonial society and cannot always hide her discontent. When a sudden crisis forces her hand, she decides to escape the only way she can, rejecting her place in the community in favor of the perilous unknown. Cutting her hair, binding her chest, and donning men’s clothes stolen from a neighbor, Deborah sheds her name and her home, beginning her identity-shaking transformation into the imaginary “Robert Shurtliff”—a desperate and dangerous masquerade that grows more serious when “Robert” joins the Continental Army. What follows is a journey through America’s War of Independence like no other—an unlikely march through cold winters across bloody battlefields, the nightmare of combat and the cruelty of betrayal, the elation of true love and the tragedy of heartbreak. As The Boston Globe raves, “Revolutionary succeeds on a number of levels, as a great historical-military adventure story, as an exploration of gender identity, and as a page-turning description of the fascinating life of the revolutionary Deborah Sampson.”

All God's Children

All God's Children
Author: Aaron Gwyn
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609456351

This sweeping novel set in the province of Texas is “a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life [and] the vicious influence of racism” (The New York Times). Finalist for the Reading the West Book Award for Fiction In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live—and love—as he pleases. That same year, Cecelia, a young slave in Virginia, runs away for the first time. Soon infamous for her escape attempts, Cecelia continues to drift through the reality of slavery—until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans. In spite of her mistrust, Cecelia senses an opportunity for freedom, and travels with Sam to Texas, where he has a homestead. In this new territory, where the law is an instrument for the cruel and the wealthy, they begin an unlikely life together, unaware that their fates are intertwined with those of Sam’s former army mates, including Duncan Lammons, a friend—and others who harbor dangerous dreams of their own. This “swift and skillful Western” takes its place among the great stories that recount the country’s fight for freedom—one that makes us want to keep on with the struggle (The Wall Street Journal). “Gwyn creates an overwhelmingly visceral and emotionally rich narrative amid Texas’s complex path to statehood . . . This is a masterpiece of western fiction in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “It’s always a pleasure to discover another superb writer who had not been on my radar . . . many scenes pulse with tension, tenderness or both.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2005-05-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101200901

“I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . .” —The New York Sun “Exceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or any other.” —The Washington Post Book World From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself.

The Contagion of Liberty

The Contagion of Liberty
Author: Andrew M. Wehrman
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2022-12-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421444666

"The author argues that a demand for public solutions during smallpox epidemics of the eighteenth century, especially broad access to inoculation, influenced revolutionary politics and changed the way that Americans understood their health and governmental responsibilities to protect it"--