Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations

by Simon Schama

Overview

A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

Characteristically, Schama’s message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope – in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums – are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai.

At the heart of it all is an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as “the saviour of mankind” for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.

Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, “there are no foreigners, only familiars.” 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328974839
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	41,560
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University in New York. His award-winning books include Scribble, Scribble, Scribble; The American Future: A History; National Book Critics Circle Award winner Rough Crossings; The Power of Art; The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age; Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution; Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations); Landscape and Memory; Rembrandt's Eyes; and the History of Britain trilogy. He has written and presented forty television documentary films for the BBC, PBS, and The History Channel, including the Emmy-winning Power of Art, on subjects that range from John Donne to Tolstoy.

Editorial Reviews

07/24/2023

Historian Schama (The Story of the Jews) examines in this insightful study the scientific battle against epidemic diseases over the past three centuries, as scientists contended with both the contagions and human intransigence. Schama describes Europe’s gradual acceptance of inoculation to combat smallpox during the 18th century, despite a populace skeptical of an “oriental” solution (the earliest version of inoculation came to Europe from the Ottomans and likely originated in China) that seemed to contravene the “will of the Almighty” (sickness being imagined as divinely ordained) and contradict widely accepted humoral theories, which posited that disease emerged naturally from within the body and strengthened survivors. Schama also recounts the later efforts of vaccine pioneers, focusing mainly on Waldemar Haffkine, a Ukrainian Jewish microbiologist who established the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in British-ruled India. However, this “modern saint and savior” was brought down by anti-vaccine backlash, as he was made the scapegoat for the deaths of 19 Indians who got tetanus from a bottle of plague vaccine that was likely contaminated at the injection site, not during production. Schama concludes with a summary of Anthony Fauci’s struggles in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting how modern vaccine resistance is entwined with conspiracy theories and nationalist impulses that resist international coordination, echoing past fears of “foreign” solutions. Schama’s wide-ranging history brings worthwhile lessons from the past to the present. Readers will be enlightened. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"A vivid account of the horror of epidemics and the breakthroughs that can bring them under control." — Kirkus Reviews

“A splendid and often moving work of history. . . .Schama has a gift for combining novelistically colorful detail, serious analysis, and wryly amusing asides.” — Daily Telegraph (London)

"Superb." — Observer

“Extraordinary. . . . A meticulous retelling of a terrible yet scientifically innovative period. . . . Schama makes an urgent case for building a better future on our toxic past.” — The Guardian

“Gripping. . . . This is history of the best sort—humanly engaged but never sentimental.” — Mail on Sunday

“An epic and impassioned history.” — Financial Times

“A very personal and rather wonderful book.” — Literary Review

“Vast, terrifying, and somehow beautiful. . . .A masterful work of nonfiction.” — Irish Times

“Insightful . . . . Schama’s wide-ranging history brings worthwhile lessons from the past to the present. Readers will be enlightened.” — Publishers Weekly

"[An] important and inimitable book...always cautionary and sage." — Booklist (starred review)

“In his eloquent, discursive Foreign Bodies, the art historian and Europhile turns his colossal erudition to pandemics and the women and men who transformed our understanding of them. It's just what the doctor ordered as a robust SARS CoV-2 variant surges across the globe. . . . Foreign Bodies is sterling cultural history, but it also reminds us that political concerns mold our choices as future pandemics brew.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Fascinating. . . . a sweeping social history of inoculation. . . . Along the way, readers meet vaccination’s most regular traveling companion—distrust.” — The Economist

"Foreign Bodies is sterling cultural history, but it also reminds us that political concerns mold our choices as future pandemics brew.” — Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Fascinating. . . . a sweeping social history of inoculation. . . . Along the way, readers meet vaccination’s most regular traveling companion—distrust.” — Economist 

“In Foreign Bodies, Simon Schama studies pandemics past and present, and how much — and little — we have learned. . . . The appearance of yet another enthusiastic and erudite history from Simon Schama is an event always to be welcomed. . . . The story of Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine, little told in the West beyond the world of bacteriology and within the annals of Judaica, is thrilling in its nobility and verve. . . . Schama’s central character proves an irresistible enchantment.”  — New York Times Book Review

“[Schama] reconciles the weight of medical detail with the light-footed pleasures of narrative discovery. His book profiles some of the unsung miracle workers of modern vaccination, and offers a subtle rumination on borders political and biological.” — Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2023-05-31
A history of the contest between contagion and medical research.

Schama, a professor of history and art history at Columbia, has won numerous awards for his many books and TV documentaries. At first glance, a book dealing with diseases would not seem to be a good match for the author, but his methods work well with the subject. Schama focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, chronicling the smallpox outbreak in London, the cholera epidemic in Paris, and the bubonic plague that swept through India. Smallpox killed tens of thousands, and there seemed to be no answer to it. Eventually, however, it was discovered that deliberately infecting people with a diluted dose could give them immunity against the virus. This seemed counterintuitive, and the medical establishment was solidly opposed to it (a recurring theme of the book). Nonetheless, the concept gradually took hold and became a founding principle of immunology. Cholera, being bacterial in nature, required a different approach, and Schama examines the various theories put forward on the way to the solutions of better sanitation and water filtration. Bubonic plague had been around for centuries, but its reemergence in the late 19th century caught researchers by surprise. Schama notes that a key figure in fighting it in India was the “saintly scientist” Waldemar Haffkine, a gifted microbiologist who developed many of the testing protocols that would eventually underpin the field. He was also instrumental in organizing a large-scale vaccination effort, saving an untold number of lives. This is a broad canvas, but Schama, a diligent and experienced historian, keeps the narrative on track, and he has a good eye for illustrative anecdotes. It adds up to a strong story that, in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, speaks to us all.

A vivid account of the horror of epidemics and the breakthroughs that can bring them under control.

Kirkus Reviews

An epic and impassioned history.”

Financial Times (London)

This is history of the best sort—humanly engaged but never sentimental.”

Mail on Sunday (London)

A splendid and often moving work of history.”

Daily Telegraph (London)

A meticulous retelling of a terrible yet scientifically innovative period…Schama makes an urgent case for building a better future on our toxic past.”

The Guardian (London)

Simon Schama's historical authority--demonstrated by his confident vocal performance--foregrounds his account of humanity's ongoing fight to protect itself against deadly disease. Schama takes listeners on a journey from inoculation to vaccination, starting with the battle against smallpox, moving through cholera and tuberculosis research, and ultimately landing on recent developments around COVID-19. He expertly wraps his deep-rooted historical research in engrossing storytelling to unravel the past fact by fact. His performance underscores the prejudice, particularly anti-Asian discrimination and anti-Semitism, that has run rampant in epidemiological endeavors throughout time. As it turns out, Schama reveals, medical innovation in fighting disease and infection isn't about the health of humans at all. It's about the political health--and power--of nations themselves. A.A.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2023 - AudioFile