Plagues and Pandemics in Modern World History

Catalog description

Epidemics captivate and terrify us. Americans and others around the world are obsessed with epidemic diseases and their social, cultural, political and economic effects. But why are we so fascinated by epidemics? How have humans responded to epidemics historically, and have those responses varied by place or evolved over time? This course seeks to answer these questions and others by examining the history of epidemic diseases in modern world history, using selected case studies to investigate the social, cultural, political and economic effects of disease outbreaks.