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history of disease

Andrew Wehrman wins the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Gomes Memorial Book Prize

John Fea   |  October 31, 2023

The Central Michigan University history professor won the prize for his book The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution. Listen to our interview with Andrew Wehrman in Episode 107 of The Way of Improvement Leads […]

What I am reading: Kyle Harper on climate and deadly germs that made (and continue to make) history, Part II

Nadya Williams   |  May 19, 2023

 â€śThere have been about ten thousand generations of humans so far. For all but the last three or four generations, life was short, lasting on average around thirty years. Yet this average is deceptive, because life in a world ruled […]

What I am reading: Kyle Harper on climate and deadly germs that made (and continue to make) history, Part I

Nadya Williams   |  May 18, 2023

As historians, we display the same love of searching for agency as any mom who enters a really messy room with trepidation yet determination—every toy box has been emptied, and the Legos strewn across the floor dare you to walk […]

Episode 107: “The Politics of Smallpox in Revolutionary America”

John Fea   |  December 19, 2022

The American Revolution happened in the midst of a smallpox epidemic. In one of the timeliest history books of the publishing season, historian Andrew Wehrman visits the podcast to talk about what the patriots of the American Revolution and the […]

Vaccine mandates are very American

John Fea   |  September 8, 2021

Ohio representative Jim Jordan recently tweeted this: Not really. Here is The Washington Post: At a time when the delta variant’s summer surge has renewed the nation’s divisions over coronavirus vaccines, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday said mandates enforcing […]