Germ Wars: The Politics of Microbes and America's Landscape of Fear

by Melanie Armstrong

Overview

The United States government has spent billions of dollars to prepare the nation for bioterrorism despite the extremely rare occurrence of biological attacks in modern American history. Germ Wars argues that bioterrorism has emerged as a prominent fear in the modern age, arising with the production of new forms of microbial nature and the changing practices of warfare. In the last century, revolutions in biological science have made visible a vast microscopic world, and in this same era we have watched the rise of a global war on terror.
 
Germ Wars demonstrates that these movements did not occur separately but are instead deeply entwined—new scientific knowledge of microbes makes possible new mechanisms of war. Whether to eliminate disease or create weapons, the work to harness and control germs and the history of these endeavors provide an important opportunity for investigating how biological natures shape modern life. Germ Wars aims to convince students and scholars as well as policymakers and activists that the ways in which bioterrorism has been produced have consequences for how people live in this world of unspecifiable risks.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520292772
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/17/2017
Series:	Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	695,386
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Melanie Armstrong is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and the Public Lands Coordinator at Western State Colorado University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Political Ecologies of Bioterror 1

1 "Smallpox Is Dead": The Public Health Campaign to (Almost) Eradicate a Species 30

2 Microbes for War and Peace: On the Military Origins of Containment 68

3 The Wild Microbiological West: Fighting Ticks and Weighing Risks 97

4 Agents of Care: Bioterrorism Preparedness at the CDC 139

5 Simulation Science: Securing the Future 167

6 Bioterror Borderlands: Of Nature and Nation 203

Conclusion: "Freaked Out Yet?" 223

Acknowledgments 231

Notes 235

Selected Bibliography 263

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

"The book is most suited for those who would describe their concern as that of the critical study of nature or of institutions. They may find it useful for their own work and graduate seminars, as the volume extends critiques of authority to understudied topics of biosecurity, adds an arrow to the quiver of assaults against neoliberalism, and engenders many questions for further study."

The Quarterly Review of Biology