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History and Current Events June 2018
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Drunks : an American history
by Christopher M. Finan
Painting a portrait of one of America’s great liberation movements, a social history of alcoholism in the U.S., from the 17th century to the present day, introduces the colorful cast of characters who dedicated their lives to helping others achieve sobriety, including the two drunks who helped each other stay sober and then created Alcoholics Anonymous.
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| The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics by Stephen CossWhat it's about: This sweeping colonial history links the Boston smallpox epidemic of 1721 to the democratization of the press, exploring the impact of these fevers -- medical and political -- on a nascent America.
Why you might like it: Ambitious yet accessible, The Fever of 1721 features anecdotes about famous players in early American history, including a teenage Benjamin Franklin. |
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| The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease by Meredith WadmanWhat it's about: The development of the first polio, rubella, and rabies vaccines in the 1960s and '70s paved the way for political scheming, ethical quandaries, and destructive rivalries, as scientists on the forefront of discovery sought to make newer, better vaccines -- often at the expense of their human test subjects.
For fans of: Readers drawn to surveys of medical ethics like Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks will find much to ponder here. |
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Pox : an American history
by Michael Willrich
What it's about: Chronicles the lesser-known history of how America's Progressive Era war on smallpox sparked one of the 20th century's leading civil liberties battles, describing the views and tactics of anti-vaccine advocates who feared an increasingly large government.
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The speckled monster : a historical tale of battling smallpox
by Jennifer Lee Carrell
What it's about: A timely study of early efforts to conquer smallpox offers a dramatic profile of two eighteenth-century health pioneers--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston--who flouted the European medical conventions of their era to draw on African folk knowledge and Eastern traditions to protect their children, paving the way for the science of modern immunology.
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Polio : an American story
by David M. Oshinsky
What it's about: A history of the polio epidemic that caused widespread panic in America during the early 1950s draws on the papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, Isabel Morgan, and others to capture the intense--and bitter--competition between Salk and Sabin to find the first vaccine and its implications for such issues as government testing of new drugs and manufacturers' liability.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Central Mississippi Regional Library System
100 Tamberline Street
Brandon, Mississippi 39042
601-825-0100
http://www.cmrls.lib.ms.us
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