Medicine at the Border

'The examples of HIV/AIDS, SARS, and, more recently, bird flu illustrate how societies have been riven by fear of the threat of epidemic disease. This book helps us make sense of the place of disease control in a globalized world. It shows how, historically, national, colonial, international and global issues have been enmeshed in the development of modern public health responses. It demonstrates the connections between nationalism and the use of the 'hygienic shield' of border regulation. I can recommend it to all those who want an informed analysis of the historical roots of current concerns about global pandemics.' - Professor Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London

'These wide-ranging and probing essays are an essential guide to the new and sometimes frightening world of biocommunication, biopreparedness and biosecuirty. Together they reveal the larger biological and microbial dimensions of globalization and outline a telling post-colonial critique of the contemporary politics of national and international health.' - Professor Warwick Anderson, University of Wisconsin, author of Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines

'Without denying or erasing the changes that have taken place in public health and border medicine over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, Medicine at the Border: Disease, Globalization and Security, 1850 to the Present < thus closes the circle, and finds a balance between documenting the distinctive features of contemporary medicalized borders and reminding scholars and policy-makers alike that they have deep roots and unintended consequences we cannot afford to ignore.' - Roberta Bivins, Reviews in History (Institute of Historical Research)

'This book is a pioneering contribution to the history of medicine and public health in Tunisia and to colonial medicine in general and will become an indispensable source for future researchers. The author is to be congratulated.' - Nancy Gallagher, Medical History