American Contagions

Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19

By: John Fabian Witt

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

A concise history of how American law has shaped - and been shaped by - the experience of contagion, "taking us from the smallpox outbreaks of the colonies to COVID-19.... The conclusion [Witt] arrives at is devastating" (Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times).

From yellow fever to smallpox to polio to AIDS to COVID-19, epidemics have prompted Americans to make choices and answer questions about their basic values and their laws. In five concise chapters, historian John Fabian Witt traces the legal history of epidemics, showing how infectious disease has both shaped, and been shaped by, the law. Arguing that throughout American history legal approaches to public health have been liberal for some communities and authoritarian for others, Witt shows us how history's answers to the major questions brought up by previous epidemics help shape our answers today: What is the relationship between individual liberty and the common good? What is the role of the federal government, and what is the role of the states? Will long-standing traditions of government and law give way to the social imperatives of an epidemic? Will we let the inequities of our mixed tradition continue?

©2020 John Fabian Witt (P)2021 Tantor

History- very good. Political slant- too obvious

Witt does a great job bring us the history and current state of American society and the law on this subject. Near the end his personal politics becomes too obvious and that’s a shame because it takes away from the notion that the material itself might rise above the political fray and stand alone. Managing ones personal biases once again proves too difficult even for a now self professed expert.