What happens when a nation or a continent loses one third of its population in the space of a few years? What does the “Spanish Influenza” of 1918–19 – which killed more people that the Great War it followed – tell you about your chances of surviving the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century? Why are we at once winning and losing our battle against AIDS?

These are some of the questions discussed in this collection of essays, which looks at disease epidemics not only as great killers but as forceful historical agents of their own right. When Disease Makes History provides a unique interdisciplinary and comparative view on the historical impact of major disease epidemics during the last seven hundred years, the period when human societies have moved from relative isolation to all-permeating connectedness. The book’s sweeping spatial and temporal scope – seven centuries, five continents – invites comparisons among different epidemics, places, and periods.

Moving beyond encyclopedic listings of diffusion routes and death rates of different diseases, the book underscores the stunning variety of diseases and the complexity of their historical impact. The essays examine how epidemics have shaken power relations among human societies, influenced seemingly self-contained political processes, transformed economies, fueled mass migrations across continents, given rise to new imperial and international orders, and altered humans’ perceptions of their bodies,
minds, and gods.

Pekka Hämäläinen is Assistant Professor of Spanish Borderlands and Native American History at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.