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Foreign Bodies

Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations

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Foreign Bodies

By: Simon Schama
Narrated by: Simon Schama
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About this listen

 ‘This splendid and often moving work of history… Schama has a gift for combining novelistically colourful detail, serious analysis and wryly amusing asides’ Daily Telegraph

‘Superb’ Observer

‘Extraordinary… A meticulous retelling of a terrible yet scientifically innovative period… Makes an urgent case for building a better future on our toxic past’ Guardian

‘This is history of the best sort – humanly engaged but never sentimental’ Mail on Sunday

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

Characteristically, with Schama the message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope – in hospitals and prisons, palaces and slums – are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

At the heart of it all, an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine. A gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as ‘the saviour of mankind’ for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.

Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, ‘there are no foreigners, only familiars’.©2021 Simon Schama (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, UK Contagious Diseases History History & Philosophy Physical Illness & Disease Science World England Medicine China

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All stars
Most relevant  
it feels as though the narrative switches from an episodic history of key characters to an autobiography of one, if particular, but the reasons for this become apparent. narration is great throughout. really enjoyed this.

fascinating history of one of the less famous pioneers of healthcare.

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Quite a depressing read from many perspectives.
1. There are a lot of very nasty diseases
2. Man is making them even more nasty (probably)
3. Ignorance and religion are always blocking science
4. Colonialism is a great spreader of disease.
5. It's only a matter of time before the next big one.
A good book to add to your knowledge of pandemics, but you need to be good at memorising names because there are a lot of them. Surprised Edward Jenner didn't get more of a mention.

Why didn't we all die?

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This book, which covers science and society over some 400 years, touched me deeply. Schama brilliantly compiles a moving story of vulnerable humans, brutal nationalism, and perverse bureaucracy. Wish everyone could read this book.

Moving

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I love Simon Schama and his breadth of knowledge is prodigious but the title of the book is a bit misleading, as it really focusses on Hafkin and his endeavours to crate vaccines in India. I would have liked more about the rest of history but there was little mention of the Spanish flu outbreak or other outbreaks in the 20th century. A missed opportunity.

Focus on India

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The book is a brilliantly presented highly-listenable, historical tour detailing the ingenuity of science, and the dogged persistence of pioneers in dealing with repeated episodes of serious infections and pandemics (plague, cholera, ebola, malaria, flu and now Covid-19), and repeated episodes of humans refusing to recognise or denying facts, but rather to discredit them – whether for personal, religious, financial or imperialist motives – as a suspicious plot.
Well written and historically detailed, not only does the book bring to our attention the extraordinary story of Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine, a largely unrecognised Russian Jew who was key to many of the advances in inoculation against infectious diseases, but also to the importance of the Pasteur Institutes in this role.

I am so pleased that Simon decided to read the whole book himself – unlike some others of his which are read only in part by him or entirely by someone else. His passion and deep understanding and presentation of what is for him a novel subject - he says it is ‘outside his comfort zone’ - comes through clearly and genuinely and is mesmerising to listen to. The prologue, first and last chapters are broad and insightful expositions of the importance of our relationship with nature and the natural world and how badly we deal with that relationship putting us all in peril.
Go and buy it – you will not be disappointed.

Accessible history of plagues read by the author

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Wow! Only Simon Schama himself could read this and make it make sense to the listener. History repeats itself is a truism that is nonetheless true. How sad that so often politics, racism, nationalism, egoism and all manner of basically human evils have damaged ourselves and the planet we live on. This is a very different view of vaccines and epidemics than the more usual accounts written by scientists but the depth of historical research and insights seem to make the story even more painful. And we keep on doing it! A brilliant but saddening analysis.

Immense

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I'm Englismh and witing tthis in 2024 so Scharner s perspective seems to be too short and blue lenses for me. I 8magine Faucci is neither a heroes or villain but to I fer he's achieved the sane miracle as a vaccine for cholera and bubonic plaqge is too much. I note that vaccine mandates for a disease with 0.15 iseem dracconian where our hero only vaccinated volunteers for diseases with 30-70% ifr.
I did really enjoy the
very detailed history of the title though with its u dealing themes of imperialism and anti semmitism.

Fascinating history of vaccination marred by US partisanship

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interesting and compelling to listen to. The narrator, being the author, made this book especially brilliant.

Informative....

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Thoroughly enjoyed. The thought the foolish mistakes made by the British Empire under others are still being repeated in the 21st century is very disquieting

Detail and Delivery

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not what I expected or wanted, I've had a few books on history of the late 19th and early 20th century Europe. I chose this for something other than a rehashing of this topic. More than half the book is covering Haffkine, which whist interesting wasn't what I was after.

not very much a story of microbiology just Haffkine

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