In a world of growing health inequity and ecological injustice, how do we revitalize medicine and public health to tackle new problems? This ground-breaking collection draws together case studies of social medicine in the Global South, radically shifting our understanding social science in healthcare. Looking beyond a narrative originating in nineteenth-century Europe, a team of expert contributors explores a far broader set of roots and branches, with nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Oceania, the Middle East and Asia. This plural approach reframes and decolonizes the study of social medicine, highlighting connections to social justice and health equity, social science and state formation, bottom-up community initiatives, grassroots movements and an array of revolutionary sensibilities. This truly global history offers a more usable past to imagine a new politics of social medicine for medical professionals and healthcare workers worldwide. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.