Details e-Book Necropolis
đ¸ Author(s): Kathryn Olivarius
đ¸ Title: Necropolis
đ¸ Rating : 551 from 5 stars ( reviews)
đ¸ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
đ¸ Supported Devices: Android, iOS, MacOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award Winner of James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize, SHEAR Winner of the Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History Winner of the Humanities Book of the Year Award, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities âA brilliant book...This transformative work is a pivotal addition to the scholarship on American slavery.â âAnnette Gordon-Reed âA stunning account of âhigh-risk, high-rewardâ profiteering in the yellow feverâridden Crescent City...a world in which a deadly virus altered every aspect of a brutal social system, exacerbating savage inequalities of enslavement, race, and class.â âJohn Fabian Witt, author of American Contagions âOlivariusâs new perspectives on yellow fever, immunocapitalism, and the politics of acclimation...will influence a generation of scholars to come on the intersections of racism, slavery, and public health.â âThe Lancet In antebellum New Orleans, at the heart of Americaâs slave and cotton kingdoms, epidemics of yellow fever killed as many as 150,000 people. With little understanding of the origins of the illnessâand meager public health infrastructureâoneâs only hope if infected was to survive, providing the lucky few with a mysterious form of immunity. Repeated epidemics bolstered New Orleansâs strict racial hierarchy by introducing another hierarchy, a form of âimmunocapital,â as white survivors leveraged their immunity to pursue economic and political advancement while enslaved Blacks were relegated to the most grueling labor. The question of healthâwho has it, who doesnât, and whyâis always in part political. Necropolis shows how powerful nineteenth-century Orleanians constructed a society that capitalized on mortal risk and benefited from the chaos that ensued.