Disease and discrimination : poverty and pestilence in Colonial Atlantic America / Dale L. Hutchinson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Disease and discrimination are processes linked to class in the early American colonies. Many early colonists fell victim to mass sickness as Old and New World systems collided and new social, political, economic, and ecological dynamics allowed disease to spread.

Dale Hutchinson argues that most colonists, slaves, servants, and nearby Native Americans suffered significant health risks due to their lower economic and social status. With examples ranging from indentured servitude in the Chesapeake to the housing and sewage systems of New York to the effects of conflict between European powers, Hutchinson posits that poverty and living conditions, more so than microbes, were often at the root of epidemics.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Hutchinson's text on the dissemination and treatment of disease among Colonial and Indigenous populations in the New World is a smorgasbord of history, anthropology, economics, ecology, geography, and art history. This comprehensive work examines how disease affected populations in the Old and New Worlds from 1500 through 1850 CE, with a particular emphasis on disease transmission in Colonial Atlantic America and poverty's role in this transmission. A summary time line with key events helps provide contemporary anchors to the dense text, as does the use of relevant illustrations and maps. The content is organized well with copious notes drawn from primary and secondary sources. The notes themselves are invaluable, as they contain supplementary materials that buttress Hutchinson's arguments and tangential information for consideration. In fact, the notes are an academic rabbit hole, in which one tends to wander recklessly but not aimlessly, occasionally emerging with a transformative interpretation on an accepted premise. Hutchinson (anthropology, Univ. of North Carolina) is true to his intent to tell the rest of a story in which "disease, the actual outcome of infection, is only a small part...." This work is highly recommended for all history collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; researchers and general readers. --Nadia J. Lalla, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences