Description
Book SynopsisA global history of malaria that traces the natural and social forces that have shaped its spread and made it deadly, while limiting efforts to eliminate it. Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of peopleand kills nearly a half a millioneach year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did malaria disappear from other regions, and why does it persist in the tropics? From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall M. Packard's far-ranging narrative shows how the history of malaria has been driven by the interplay of social, biological, economic, and environmental forces. The shifting alignment of these forces has largely determined the social and geographical distribution of the disease, including its initial global expansion, its subsequent retreat to the tropics, and its current persistence. Packard argues that efforts to control and elimin
Table of ContentsForeword, by Charles E. Rosenberg
Preface: Mulanda
Introduction: Constructing a Global Narrative
1. Beginnings
2. Malaria Moves North
3. A Southern Disease
4. Tropical Development and Malaria
5. The Making of a Vector-Borne Disease
6. Malaria Dreams
7. Malaria Realities
8. Rolling Back Malaria
9. Malaria Eradication Redux
Conclusion: Ecology and Policy
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
