Description
Book SynopsisBy carefully retelling the story of the foundations of public health in industrial revolution Britain not as the triumph of responsible government over urban filth but as a politically savvy choice to undermine the potential of a public medicine to provide a basis for radical criticism of laissez faire capitalism, this book opens the possibility for understanding health as a matter of justice.
Trade ReviewReview of the hardback: 'In this splendid scholarly study, Chris Hamlin offers a major reinterpretation of Edwin Chadwick and the public health movement. The consequences of Chadwick's politics are with us to the present day. This is indispensable reading for anyone interested in health and welfare.' The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
Review of the hardback: 'Hamlin tells us how public health was 'invented' about 150 years ago, with Chadwick as the key actor, and tells it with such pace and excitement that it is hard to put down. Every educated person should read it: certainly all politicians, doctors, every student of public health and all concerned with international development.' London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Review of the hardback: 'Christopher Hamlin is among the best and most incisive innovators in nineteenth century environmental, medical and cultural history. In Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick, he has produced a re-evaluation which will become seminal. Even more importantly, Hamlin persuades us radically to rethink and redefine what we mean when we talk about 'public health'.' Bill Luckin, University of London
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Health as Money; 2. A Political Medicine; 3. Prelude to the Sanitary Report, 1833–1838; 4. The Making of the Sanitary Report, 1839–1842; 5. The Sanitary Report; 6. Chadwick's Evidence: The Local Reports; 7. Sanitation Triumphant: The Health of Towns Commission, 1843–1845; 8. The Politics of Public Health, 1841–1848; 9. Selling Sanitation: the Inspectors and the Local Authorities, 1848-1854; 10. Lost in the Pipes; Conclusion; Bibliography.
