Description:
Plague and the City uncovers discourses of plague and anti-plague measures in the city during the medieval, early modern and modern periods. It is ideal for students of early modern history, and of the early modern city and plague more specifically.
Review Quotes:
'Through interdisciplinary approaches in medical, anthropological, and visual histories, the essays in this volume unravel complex interconnections between plague and urban environments from the Black Death to the twentieth century. Among their novel discoveries, they chart a shift in the visualization of plague from an emphasis on diseased bodies to the mapping and photographing of stark cityscapes, devised to understand and control epidemic disease.'
Samuel Cohn, University of Glasgow, UK
'Urban leaders once believed they could sense plague risks in fetid miasma, or map risky environments house-by-house, or photograph epidemic fodder within ubiquitous scenes of dirt and disorder. This set of engaging new studies highlights the urban-centred backdrop to much plague history. Readers will wind through backstreets and cul-de-sacs, spaces where the privileged identified plague spots.'
Ann G. Carmichael, Indiana University, USA