{"product_id":"contagion-how-commerce-has-spread-disease-9780300123579","title":"Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease","description":"\u003cp\u003eA combined history of commerce and disease  and their disturbing propensity for traveling together  Much as we take comfort in the belief that modern medicine and public health tactics can protect us from horrifying contagious diseases  such faith is dangerously unfounded. So demonstrates Mark Harrison in this pathbreaking investigation of the intimate connections between trade and disease throughout modern history. For centuries commerce has been the single most important factor in spreading diseases to different parts of the world  the author shows  and today the same is true. But in todays global world  commodities and germs are circulating with unprecedented speed. Beginning with the plagues that ravaged Eurasia in the fourteenth century  Harrison charts both the passage of disease and the desperate measures to prevent it. He examines the emergence of public health in the Western world  its subsequent development elsewhere  and a recurring pattern of misappropriation of quarantines  embargoes  and other sanitary measures for political or economic gaineven for use as weapons of war. In concluding chapters the author exposes the weaknesses of todays public health regulationsa set of rules that not only disrupt the global economy but also fail to protect the public from the afflictions of trade-borne disease.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651753140277,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300123574","price":77.64,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300123579.jpg?v=1781839528","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/contagion-how-commerce-has-spread-disease-9780300123579","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}