Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Leprosy and Empire
  • Cited by 45
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      17 July 2009
      30 November 2006
      ISBN:
      9780511497285
      9780521865845
      9780521123129
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497285
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.56kg, 266 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.4kg, 268 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Social and Population History, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, Regional History after 1500
      Series:
      Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (8)
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Social and Population History, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, Regional History after 1500
    Series:
    Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories (8)
    Information

    Book description

    An innovative, interdisciplinary study of why leprosy, a disease with a very low level of infection, has repeatedly provoked revulsion and fear. Rod Edmond explores, in particular, how these reactions were refashioned in the modern colonial period. Beginning as a medical history, the book broadens into an examination of how Britain and its colonies responded to the believed spread of leprosy. Across the empire this involved isolating victims of the disease in 'colonies', often on offshore islands. Discussion of the segregation of lepers is then extended to analogous examples of this practice, which, it is argued, has been an essential part of the repertoire of colonialism in the modern period. The book also examines literary representations of leprosy in Romantic, Victorian and twentieth-century writing, and concludes with a discussion of traveller-writers such as R. L. Stevenson and Graham Greene who described and fictionalised their experience of staying in a leper colony.

    Reviews

    '… thoughtful study … Leprosy and Empire is … able to offer some subtle but penetrating insights into the place of disease in imperial culture.'

    Mark Harrison Source: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences

    ‘The last few decades have seen an impressive number of books on the history of leprosy, and this is a useful addition to the genre. The ‘medical’ component of the book is excellent … The book will appeal to students of the history of medicine and to those with an interest in disease as metaphor.’

    Hugo Rée Source: Health and History

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.