In a series of case studies of sexually transmitted disease and HIV/AIDS from around Africa, contributors examine the social, cultural, and political-economic bases of risk, transmission, and response to epidemic disease. This book brings together major contributions to the historical study of epidemic disease in developing countries and considers how particular constellations of cultural, social, political, and economic factors in different countries have affected the historical patterns of disease and collective (official and community) response to them. This book is a companion volume to Sex, Disease, and Society: A Comparative History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (Greenwood, 1997).

From this endeavor to provide insight into the conjunctions and disjunctions between the histories of STDs and the AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa certain common issues have emerged. These include medical ambiguity and epidemiologic diversity; cultural change; racism; gender, labor migration, and economic instability; and the practice of biomedicine and epidemiology in African contexts. All of these factors are embedded in the colonial legacy and post-colonial political economic conditions across the continent.