Pandemic India: From Cholera to Covid-19

Covid-19 has brought attention to the long and contested history of pandemics, particularly in South Asia. Pandemic India explores the idea and changing meaning of pandemics, examining the role of India over the past 200 years. It explains how past pandemics were closely associated with South Asia, the factors behind their exceptional destructiveness, responses from society and the state, and how they have changed lives and been remembered. The book offers comparisons with earlier epidemics of cholera, plague, and influenza and assesses the distinctive characteristics and legacies of each episode. It is a historian's reflection on time and the ways the past is used to serve the present.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 05 May 2022
Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd

Covid-19 has brought a renewed focus to the pandemic as a devastating and recurring global phenomenon. While the term is now widely used, its historical context is complex and contested, particularly in South Asia. Pandemic India is an innovative exploration into the origins and evolving meanings of pandemics, delving into India's pivotal role over the past two centuries. Through the perspectives of social historians and medical historians, along with a wide range of sources, the book sheds light on how and why past pandemics have been closely associated with South Asia, the factors behind their exceptional destructiveness in India, the responses from society and the state during and after the colonial era, and how these collective catastrophes have shaped lives and been remembered. By providing a "long history" to India's current pandemic, the book offers comparisons with previous epidemics of cholera, plague, and influenza. David Arnold assesses the distinctive characteristics and legacies of each episode, tracing the evolution of public health strategies and containment measures. This is a historian's reflection on time as seen through the pandemic prism, and on the ways in which the past is used or misused to serve the present.

Weight: 580g
Dimension: 224 x 150 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781787387096