Jeanne Abrams
Thoroughly researched and documented. Wehrman provides a nuanced description of smallpox and its history, focused on the thirteen colonies, the Revolutionary Era, and the Early Republic. He makes an original contribution to the history of smallpox inoculation and the early decades of vaccination, as well as the history of disease. By anchoring the story firmly in the political developments of the period, he also makes a substantial contribution to wider American history.
Woody Holton
In clear and graceful prose, Wehrman shows smallpox inoculation repeatedly spilling over into everything from class conflict to false claims that Black people could not be immunized. During the American War of Independence, precedent, including Martha Washington's successful inoculation, and what Wehrman calls 'desperate voices from below' dissolved Gen. Washington's qualms about immunizing the Continental Army: arguably his most valuable gift to the nation.
Elizabeth A. Fenn
The Contagion of Liberty is innovative, readable, and utterly convincing. Andrew Wehrman leaves me more certain than ever that we cannot understand the Revolutionary War if we do not understand smallpox. To do so is to understand America itself.
Peter McCandless
A significant contribution to the literature on attempts to control smallpox in the United States as well as to the history of US health care in general. The Contagion of Liberty is a novel, innovative approach in connecting the threat of smallpox in early America with the threat to liberty from Great Britain and the ideology of the American Revolution.
Jeanne E. Abrams
Thoroughly researched and documented. Wehrman provides a nuanced description of smallpox and its history, focused on the thirteen colonies, the Revolutionary Era, and the Early Republic. He makes an original contribution to the history of smallpox inoculation and the early decades of vaccination, as well as the history of disease. By anchoring the story firmly in the political developments of the period, he also makes a substantial contribution to wider American history.
From the Publisher
A significant contribution to the literature on attempts to control smallpox in the United States as well as to the history of US health care in general. The Contagion of Liberty is a novel, innovative approach in connecting the threat of smallpox in early America with the threat to liberty from Great Britain and the ideology of the American Revolution.
—Peter McCandless, author of Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry
Thoroughly researched and documented. Wehrman provides a nuanced description of smallpox and its history, focused on the thirteen colonies, the Revolutionary Era, and the Early Republic. He makes an original contribution to the history of smallpox inoculation and the early decades of vaccination, as well as the history of disease. By anchoring the story firmly in the political developments of the period, he also makes a substantial contribution to wider American history.
—Jeanne E. Abrams, author of Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health
The Contagion of Liberty is innovative, readable, and utterly convincing. Andrew Wehrman leaves me more certain than ever that we cannot understand the Revolutionary War if we do not understand smallpox. To do so is to understand America itself.
—Elizabeth A. Fenn, author of Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82
An important and revealingly detailed study of late-eighteenth century arguments and local disputes over smallpox inoculation and vaccination. These debates and social conflicts provide a creative sampling device, contributing in granular fashion to our understanding of America's revolutionary generation.
—Charles E. Rosenberg, author of Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now
In clear and graceful prose, Wehrman shows smallpox inoculation repeatedly spilling over into everything from class conflict to false claims that Black people could not be immunized. During the American War of Independence, precedent, including Martha Washington's successful inoculation, and what Wehrman calls 'desperate voices from below' dissolved Gen. Washington's qualms about immunizing the Continental Army: arguably his most valuable gift to the nation.
—Woody Holton, author of Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution
A rollicking account of smallpox in the era of the American Revolution, when public health populism meant demand from below for a state-sponsored inoculation campaign. George Washington's legendary order to inoculate the Continental Army now appears as the culmination of decades of popular politics around freedom not from government but from disease.
—John Fabian Witt, Yale Law School, author of American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to Covid-19
Elizabeth Fenn
Contagion of Liberty is innovative, readable, and utterly convincing. Andrew Wehrman leaves me more certain than ever that we cannot understand the Revolutionary War if we do not understand smallpox. To do so is to understand America itself.
John Fabian Witt
A rollicking account of smallpox in the era of the American Revolution, when public health populism meant demand from below for a state-sponsored inoculation campaign. George Washington's legendary order to inoculate the Continental Army now appears as the culmination of decades of popular politics around freedom not from government but from disease.
Charles E. Rosenberg
An important and revealingly detailed study of late-eighteenth century arguments and local disputes over smallpox inoculation and vaccination. These debates and social conflicts provide a creative sampling device, contributing in granular fashion to our understanding of America's revolutionary generation.
