Simon & Schuster Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations

If you just the facts, ma'am, this is not for you. Schama is a historian & does just that in maddening detail. He takes the broadest of scopes & narrows it down to a point, but maybe not thee point. A laborious read with gallons of pondering implications. Caveat Emptor.

Well researched and well written!

This book is a bit disappointing coming from such a distinguished author, and more or less makes 3 stars. It seems to be a rushed effort, and with far too much somewhat gossipy material thrown in. Is this a book about pandemics, the British Empire especially India about which an enormous amount has already been written, racism , the stretched abilities of the British to manage a vast Empire, the stuffy medical hierarchy in the UK and elsewhere, or what? Everything bar the kitchen sink is thrown in and the book is a rather hurried jumble, leaping from disease to disease and back again and similarly from leading personnel. It appears there was just too much material to cope with, and the overall objectives of the book are not clear, a great pity. Also coming from a leading publisher the pictures are a very low quality and unevenly spread. Overall something of a let down

As other reviewers have noted the writing is somewhat difficult to understand. And the content is often tangential. But in the end it gets across the very difficult history of inoculation therapy. What I found depressing is that the ignorance and political opportunism in the 19th century is still with us in 21st century. With all the advances in science nothing has changed. The persecution of a doctor and scientist with Dr. Fauci’s credentials and accomplishments is beyond comprehension. And the continued torturing of animals by big Pharma to make a profit when alternative technology is available is simply criminal. It’s too bad the people who need to read it never will.

The doctors who developed the vaccines tried them on themselves first. Good social history of the people and times and that's as interesting as the vaccine stories themselves. Excellent