Pandemics and epidemics have affected human populations throughout recorded history. Larger human communities make it possible for epidemics to occur, and also promote maintaining infections in endemic form. Regardless of the organisms involved and the nature of the illness caused, certain themes are common to all in terms of the impacts and outcomes of the outbreaks in health, social, and political terms, and the measures used in attempts to control these events. In some instances, these measures have exerted some beneficial effects by changing the rate of spread of outbreaks, although not necessarily the numbers affected. it is only recently, with the advent of vaccination, that it has it become possible to effectively reduce the impacts of pandemics. Given the frequency with which people are exposed to novel infections and the speed with which some organisms can mutate, the need for readiness to combat pandemics on a worldwide basis is paramount.

Creativity is constrained in many ways, but there is always a personal dimension involved. Post-structuralist theorists such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Rosalind Krauss all tend to foreground the role of prototypes, conceptualized as languages, in a too rigid (death of the author) and too underdetermined (contingency) manner. Both Adolf Hitler and Thomas Mann wrote in German, and both considered themselves to be artists, but their German creativity had very different aims. Neither have ideas of children as romantic geniuses or the theory of explaining individuals which have made a historical impact as result of “genius” been helpful. Historical impact is basically the result of a sociocognitive role (pioneers solving tricky problems such as how to transform a civilized nation into a brutal one and how to explain this feat retrospectively). But such roles are best seen as results of personal learning processes, involving two other roles, novices and professionals.