A grassroots history of American medicine that shows how regular people were architects of medical knowledge and care.Most histories of medicine center doctors: the standard-bearers of expertise and innovation. Yet these narratives underplay the role that ordinary people have, and always have had, on medicine and public health.In colonial America, Black people’s knowledge led to smallpox inoculations, stymying that epidemic. Midwives, more plentiful than do...

A sweeping global history that looks beyond European urban centers to show how slavery, colonialism, and war propelled the development of modern medicine.Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London’s 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale’s contributions to the care of soldiers in the Crimean War revolutionized medical hygiene, transforming hospitals ...

Sandra Enríquez (Author)SANDRA ENRIQUEZ is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Public History Emphasis at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Enríquez is the author of ¡El Barrio No Se Vende!: Grassroots Activism and Revitalization in El PasoAnnette Gordon-Reed (Author)ANNETTE GORDON-REED is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She has won sixteen book prizes, including the Pu...

Reckoning with History brings together original essays from a diverse group of historians who consider how writing about the past can engage with the urgent issues of the present. The contributors—all former students of the distinguished Columbia University historian Eric Foner—explore the uses and politics of history through key episodes across a wide range of struggles for freedom. They shed new light on how different groups have defined and fought for freedom throughout America...

'A remarkably honest memoir of a life spent pulling people back from death' - Adam KayIn these stories, Dr Jim Down brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit - the section of the hospital where the sickest patients are brought to be cared for until their condition improves. With honesty, humility and a streak of dark humour, Dr Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical tec...

On May 1, 1866, a minor exchange between white Memphis city police and a group of black Union soldiers quickly escalated into murder and mayhem. Changes wrought by the Civil War and African American emancipation sent long-standing racial, economic, cultural, class, and gender tensions rocketing to new heights. For three days, a mob of white men roamed through South Memphis, leaving a trail of blood, rubble, and terror in their wake. By May 3, at least forty-six African American men, women,...

'Deeply affecting - a personal memoir that grips, harrows, inspires and, ultimately, uplifts with its vein of deep humanity' Philippe Sands**'**An extraordinarily frank book laced with humour and self-deprecation' The TimesAs a doctor on the intensive care unit at one of London's top hospitals, Jim Down has spent his life working as healthcare's last resort, where each day reveals a new challenge. But nothing could...

On January 6, 2021, more than two thousand rioters stormed the doors of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., hoping to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power from former president Donald Trump to his successor, Joseph Biden. The deaths, property damage, and vicious rampage that ensued were witnessed on live television as an unprecedented attack on the democratic process and those who strive to protect it.As an installment of UGA Press’s History in the Headlines series, ...

Why We Write provides a forum for scholars, activists, and novelists to reflect on the ways in which they use their writing and academic work to create social change. This volume uncovers the political agendas, social missions, and personal and professional experiences that compel writers to bring their stories to the page. Why We Write examines the dual commitment of writing articles and books that are committed to high scholarly standards as well as social justice. These essays will be o...

Reckoning with History brings together original essays from a diverse group of historians who consider how writing about the past can engage with the urgent issues of the present. The contributors—all former students of the distinguished Columbia University historian Eric Foner—explore the uses and politics of history through key episodes across a wide range of struggles for freedom. They shed new light on how different groups have defined and fought for freedom throughout America...

Bondspeople who fled from slavery during and after the Civil War did not expect that their flight toward freedom would lead to sickness, disease, suffering, and death. But the war produced the largest biological crisis of the nineteenth century, and as historian Jim Downs reveals in this groundbreaking volume, it had deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of freed people. In Sick from Freedom, Downs recovers the untold story of one of the bitterest ironies in American histo...

Historians have long been engaged in telling the story of the struggle for the vote. In the wake of recent contested elections, the suppression of the vote has returned to the headlines, as awareness of the deep structural barriers to the ballot, particularly for poor, black, and Latino voters, has called attention to the historical roots of issues related to voting access.Perhaps most notably, former state legislator Stacey Abrams’s campaign for Georgia's gubernatorial race drew n...