This book shows how bubonic plague and smallpox helped end the Hittite Empire, the Bronze Age in the Near East and later the Carthaginian Empire. The book will examine all the possible infectious diseases present in ancient times and show that life was a daily struggle for survival either avoiding or fighting against these infectious disease epidemics. The book will argue that infectious disease epidemics are a critical link in the chain of causation for the demise of most civilizations in the ancient world and that ancient historians should no longer ignore them, as is currently the case.

Interpreting the History of a Region in Crisis / Robert H. Holden -- Land and Climate: Natural Constraints and Socio-Environmental Transformations / Anthony Goebel McDermott -- Regaining Ground: Indigenous Populations and Territories / Peter H. Herlihy, Matthew L. Fahrenbruch, Taylor A. Tappan -- The Ancient Civilizations / William R. Fowler -- Marginalization, Assimilation, and Resurgence: The Indigenous Peoples since Independence / Wolfgang Gabbert -- The Spanish Conquest? / Laura E. Matthew -- Spanish Colonial Rule / Stephen Webre -- The Kingdom of Guatemala as a Cultural Crossroads / Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara -- From Kingdom to Republics, 1808-1840 / Aaron Pollack -- The Political Economy / Robert G. Williams -- State Making and Nation Building / David Díaz Arias -- Central America and the United States / Michel Gobat -- The Cold War: Authoritarianism, Empire, and Social Revolution / Joaquín M. Chávez -- Central America since the 1990s: Crime, Violence, and the Pursuit of Democracy / Christine J. Wade -- The Rise and Retreat of the Armed Forces / Orlando J. Pérez and Randy Pestana -- Religion, Politics, and the State / Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval -- Women and Citizenship: Feminist and Suffragist Movements, 1880-1957 / Eugenia Rodríguez Sáenz -- Literature, Society, and Politics / Werner Mackenbach -- Guatemala / David Carey Jr. -- Honduras / Dario A. Euraque -- El Salvador / Erik Ching -- Nicaragua / Julie A. Charlip -- Costa Rica / Iván Molina -- Panama / Michael E. Donoghue -- Belize / Mark Moberg.

Globally, there has been a move away from national public sector vaccine development over the past 30 years. Immunization and States: The Politics of Making Vaccines explores vaccine geopolitics, analyzing why, and how this move happened, before looking at the ramifications in the context of Covid-19. This unique book uses eight country studies – looking at Croatia, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Spain, and Sweden – to explore the role of public sector vaccine institutes, past and present. Raising questions about national sovereignty, the erosion of multilateralism, and geopolitics, it also contributes to debates around public interest and privatization in the health sector. An extended introduction sets the chapters in an international context, whilst the epilogue looks forward to the future of vaccine development and production. This is an important book for students, scholars, and practitioners with an interest in vaccine development from a range of fields, including public health, medicine, science and technology studies, history of medicine, politics, international relations, and the sociology of health and illness.

Un panorama general, básico y didáctico sobre la singularidad genética y biológica de la especie humana. Tras la creación del universo con el big-bang hace 13.700 millones de años brotó la vida en un planeta idóneo para su expansión y diversificación. En el libro se detallan los mecanismos de la evolución y de la aparición del Homo sapiens a partir de unos ancestros prehomínidos en el centro de África, hasta su expansión por todo el mundo. Se describen los procesos de la hominización y humanización y las especiales características del ser humano. Se explica el significado del “fenómeno humano” y el por qué y el cómo del resurgir de una especie tan singular. La única que asciende al mundo de la racionalidad y que en consecuencia vive su vida de forma consciente, se comunica con sus congéneres, crea la cultura y domina su entorno con un sentido ético y de trascendencia. En el libro se describen los fundamentos genéticos de nuestros rasgos biológicos, los determinantes genéticos y ambientales que influyen en el comportamiento humano, las enfermedades hereditarias y los detalles de nuestro genoma en relación con el de los demás seres vivos. Se distingue entre lo innato y lo adquirido. Se derriban los mitos y se asientan las pruebas de lo que es genuinamente humano y lo que no lo es. También se aborda el futuro de la humanidad en la era de las tecnologías emergentes, con los desafíos éticos de la manipulación genética y las corrientes materialistas que tratan de conducir a nuestra singular especie a la utopía transhumanista y posthumanista.

In the wake of European expansion, disease outbreaks in the New World caused the greatest loss of life known to history. Post-contact Native American inhabitants succumbed in staggering numbers to maladies such as smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus, against which they had no immunity. A collection of case studies by historians, geographers, and anthropologists, "Secret Judgments of God" discusses how diseases with Old World origins devastated vulnerable native populations throughout Spanish America. In their preface to the paperback edition, the editors discuss the ongoing, often heated debate about contact population history.