New Books In Public Health

Ninety years after the discovery of human influenza virus, Modern Flu: British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890—1950 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) by Dr. Michael Bresalier traces the history of this breakthrough and its implications for understanding and controlling influenza ever since. Examining how influenza came to be defined as a viral disease in the first half of the twentieth century, it argues that influenza’s viral identity did not suddenly appear with the discovery of the first human influenza virus in 1933. Instead, it was rooted in the development of medical virus research and virological ways of knowing that grew out of a half-century of changes and innovations in medical science that were shaped through two influenza pandemics, two world wars, and by state-sponsored programs to scientifically modernise British medicine. A series of transformations, in which virological ideas and practices were aligned with and incorporated into medicine and public health, underpinned the viralisation of influenza in the 1930s and 1940s. Collaboration, conflict and exchange between researchers, medical professionals and governmental bodies lay at the heart of this process. This book is a history of how virus researchers, clinicians, and epidemiologists, medical scientific and public health bodies, and institutions, and philanthropies in Britain, the USA and beyond, forged a new medical consensus on the identity and nature of influenza. Shedding new light on the modern history of influenza, this book is a timely account of how ways of knowing and controlling this intractable epidemic disease became viral. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Emily Kenway shares insights from her powerful new book Who Cares: The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving, and How We Solve It (Seal Press, 2023), an eye-opening exploration of the invisible world of unpaid caregivers. Drawing from her own experience caring for her terminally ill mother, Emily sheds light on the challenges faced by millions who provide critical care while being marginalized, unsupported, and overburdened. In our conversation, she urges us to reimagine a society that places care at its core, rather than on the sidelines. This conversation is a call to action for all of us to recognize and support those who give so much and ask for so little in return. Tune in to hear why Who Cares? is a book for everyone, now and in the future. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1929, the United States government approved two ground-breaking and controversial drug addiction treatment programs. At a time when fears about a supposed rise in drug use reached a fevered pitch, the emergence of the nation’s first “narcotic farms” in Fort Worth, Texas, and Lexington, Kentucky, marked a watershed moment in the treatment of addiction. Rehab on the Range is the first in-depth history of the Fort Worth Narcotic Farm and its impacts on the American West. Throughout its operation from the 1930s to the 1970s, the institution was the only federally funded drug treatment center west of the Mississippi River. Designed to blend psychiatric treatment, physical rehabilitation, and vocational training, the Narcotic Farm, its proponents argued, would transform American treatment policies for the better. The reality was decidedly more complicated. In Rehab on the Range: A History of Addiction and Incarceration in the American West (University of Texas Press, 2024) Dr. Holly M. Karibo tells the story of how this institution—once framed as revolutionary for addiction care—ultimately contributed to the turn towards incarceration as the solution to the nation’s drug problem. Blending an intellectual history of addiction and imprisonment with a social history of addicts’ experiences, Rehab on the Range provides a nuanced picture of the Narcotic Farm and its cultural impacts. In doing so, it offers crucial historical context that can help us better understand our current debates over addiction, drug policy, and the rise of mass incarceration. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The phrase "racial capitalism" was used by Cedric Robinson to describe an economy of wealth accumulation extracted from cheap labor, organized by racial hierarchy, and justified through white supremacist logics. Now, in the twenty-first century, the biotech industry is the new capitalist whose race-based exploitation engages not only labor but racialized consumption. This arrangement is upheld through US drug policy, which over the past century has created a split legal system—one punitive system that criminalizes drug use common among Black, Brown, and lower-income communities and another system characterized by compassion and care that medicalizes, and thus legalizes, drug use targeted to middle-class White people. In the award-winning book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America (U California Press, 2023), a trio of authors—Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg—explain how this arrangement came to pass, what impacts it has, and what needs to be done. This remarkable book won the 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and graduate students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. email: [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices