Written by John Lounsbury
This week Democracy Now! presented an interview of historian Frank Snowdon by Amy Goodman discussing the history of epidemics throughout the centuries. He says that there are common sociopolitial factors from history that persist even today when a pandemic occurs. Also, very interestingly, he is of the opinion than there will be no “cure” for COVID-19, and it will become an endemic disease we will have to learn to live with.
Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.
From Yale University Department of History:
Frank Snowden: Andrew Downey Orrick Professor Emeritus of History & History of Medicine
Fields of interest: Modern Italian history; Fascism; Social history; History of medicine
Professor Snowden received his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1975. His books include Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy: Apulia, 1900-1922 (1984); The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919-1922 (1989); Naples in the Times of Cholera (1995) and The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962 (2006). Conquest was awarded the Gustav Ranis Prize from the MacMillan Center at Yale in 2007 as “the best book on an international topic by a member of the Yale Faculty,” the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize by the American Historical Association as the best work on Italy in any period, and the 2008 Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine.
He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Italian history, European social and political history, and the history of medicine.
From YouTube:
Pandemics, like revolution, war and economic crises, are key determinants of historic change. We look at the history of epidemics, from Black Death to smallpox to COVID-19, and discuss how the coronavirus will reshape the world with leading medical historian Frank Snowden, author of “Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present.” He is a professor emeritus at Yale University who has been in Italy since the pandemic began, and himself survived a COVID-19 infection.
Source: YouTube
.
