Description
Book SynopsisOffers a nuanced analysis of the interaction between the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division and Mexico's Departamento de Salubridad Pública as they jointly promoted public health through campaigns against yellow fever and hookworm disease, organized cooperative rural health units, and educated public health professionals in North American universities and Mexican training stations.
Trade ReviewAn impressive piece of scholarship. -- Thomas F. O'Brien * HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *
Based on an impressive array of documents culled from archival collections in Mexico and the United States. . . . Birn expertly weaves the story of public health in Mexico, and the role played by the Rockefeller Foundation in shaping it, into the larger history of the revolutionary Mexican politics and reform efforts. . . . Despite the density of information provided, Birn's analysis is always focused, and she consistently shows the reader the connections between high politics and the day-to-day undertaking of public health. -- Katherine Elaine Bliss * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, April 2008 *
[A] work of rare maturity and insight . . . Birn's study is essential reading for students of Mexican history, scholars of international and global health, and those interested in the nature of global philanthropy. -- Steven Palmer * BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, 2008 *
Birn's book helps us track an evolving circulation of ideas, people, practices, and power and provides an invaluable . . . insight into today's world of international health. -- Charles E. Rosenberg, Ernest Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University
Birn gives a prescient, nuanced, and deeply intelligent account of the relationship between the Rockefeller Foundation and the state in shaping public health in post-revolutionary Mexico. Brilliantly written in a highly inviting style, this is an 'absolute must-read' for academics, policy makers, and activists concerned with the past and increasingly complex face of global health in the future. -- James Orbinski, associate professor of medicine and political science, University of Toronto, and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders
This impeccably researched, extremely accessible volume sets a new standard for studies of international public health. Steeped in recent innovative scholarship on global health, transnationality, and the close and often incongruous imperial encounters that circumscribe philanthropic initiatives, Marriage of Convenience crafts a richly textured account of the Rockefeller's extended relationship with Revolutionary Mexico. -- Gilbert M. Joseph, Farnam Professor of History and International Studies, Yale University, and co-editor of
Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations
