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  1. Home
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  3. Leprosy and Empire
  • Cited by 44
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
July 2009
Print publication year:
2006
Online ISBN:
9780511497285
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497285
Subjects:
Social and Population History, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, Regional History after 1500
Series:
Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (8)
Information

Book description

An innovative, interdisciplinary study of why leprosy, a disease with a very low level of infection, has repeatedly provoked revulsion and fear. Rod Edmond explores, in particular, how these reactions were refashioned in the modern colonial period. Beginning as a medical history, the book broadens into an examination of how Britain and its colonies responded to the believed spread of leprosy. Across the empire this involved isolating victims of the disease in 'colonies', often on offshore islands. Discussion of the segregation of lepers is then extended to analogous examples of this practice, which, it is argued, has been an essential part of the repertoire of colonialism in the modern period. The book also examines literary representations of leprosy in Romantic, Victorian and twentieth-century writing, and concludes with a discussion of traveller-writers such as R. L. Stevenson and Graham Greene who described and fictionalised their experience of staying in a leper colony.

Reviews

'… thoughtful study … Leprosy and Empire is … able to offer some subtle but penetrating insights into the place of disease in imperial culture.'

Mark Harrison Source: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences

‘The last few decades have seen an impressive number of books on the history of leprosy, and this is a useful addition to the genre. The ‘medical’ component of the book is excellent … The book will appeal to students of the history of medicine and to those with an interest in disease as metaphor.’

Hugo Rée Source: Health and History

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