Historiography and Covid-19. Some considerations
Keywords:
Covid-19, Historiography, History of Medicine, Pandemics, Epidemics
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the interest of public opinion and historians in epidemics and infectious diseases. These topics have been often overlooked by the “general” history, receiving attention only in the history of medicine, but from the beginning of the pandemic the interest has soared. Historians have participated in the media debate and have wondered how history can be helpful to cope with the current emergency.
Answering this question is, of course, difficult and subjective. Speaking very broadly, the numerous epidemics that have affected mankind over the centuries feature significant similarities, mainly in regard to social behaviour, but history cannot be viewed as a handbook providing answers and solutions to the present problems. In any case, in the current pandemic history is all but useless, as it helps to understand social dynamics and peculiarities.
The paper first proposes a short summary of the contributions made by historians to the understanding and the study of the current pandemic; then, it briefly examines the main recurring elements in the history of epidemics; finally, it addresses the question of the “usefulness” of history in the present emergency.
References
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Peckam, R. (2020). COVID-19 and the anti-lessons of history. The Lancet, 395, 850-851, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30468-2.
Philips, H. (2004). The re-appearing shadow of 1918: trends in the historiography of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 21 (1), 121-134.
Quanmen, D. (2012). Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. New York: W.W. Norton.
Rosenberg, Ch. (1989). What is an Epidemic? AIDS in Historical Perspective. Daedalus, 118 (2), 1-17.
Roy, A. (2020). The Pandemic is a Portal. Financial Times, 3 April.
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Vagneron, F. (2018). La grippe espagnole: une historiographie centenaire revisitée. Ler História, 73, 21-43.
White, A. R. (2020). Historical linkages: epidemic threat, economic risk, and xenophobia. The Lancet, 395, 1250-1251, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30737-6.
Williamson, S. (2007). The Vaccination Controversy: The Rise, Reign and Fall of Compulsory Vaccination for Smallpox. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Winkler, A. (2005). The Medieval Holocaust. The Approach of the Plague and the Destruction of Jews in Germany, 1348-1349. Faculty Publications of the Brigham Young University, 1816, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1816.
Alexander, J. (2002). Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alfani, G. (2013). Plague in the seventeenth-century Europe and the decline of Italy. European Review of Economic History, 17, 408-430.
Alfani, G. & Murphy, T. E. (2017). Plague and Lethal Epidemics in the Pre-Industrial World. The Journal of Economic History, 77 (1), 314-343.
Arnold, D. (2020). Pandemic India: Coronavirus and the Uses of History. The Journal of Asian Studies, 79 (3), 569–577.
Bhanot, D. et al. (2021). Stigma and Discrimination during COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health, 12 January, doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.577018.
Barry, J. M. (2004). The great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history. New York: Viking.
Benedictow, O. J. (2006). The Black Death, 1346-1353. The Complete History. Woodbridge: Boydell.
Byrne, J. P. (2004). The Black Death. London: Greenwood.
Byrne, J. P. (2012). Encyclopedia of the Black Death. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio.
Camus, A. (1947). La Peste. Paris: Gallimard. English edition: The Plague (1948). London: Hamish Hamilton.
Chandra, S., Christensen, J., & Likhtman, S. (2020). Connectivity and seasonality: the 1918 influenza and COVID-19 pandemic in global perspective. Journal of Global History, 15 (3), 408-420.
Charters, E. & McKay, R. A. (2020). The history of science and medicine in the context of COVID-19. Centaurus, 62, 223-233.
Charters, E. & Vermeir, K. (eds.) (2020). Histories of epidemics in the time of COVID-19 [special issue]. Centaurus. 62.
Chen, J. T. et al. (2021). Intersectional inequities in COVID-19 mortality by race/ethnicity and education in the United States, January 1, 2020-January 31, 2021. Working Paper Series of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 21 (3), https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1266/2021/02/21_Chen_covidMortality_Race_Education_HCPDS_WorkingPaper_Vol-21_No-3_Final_footer.pdf.
Cipolla, C. M. (2012). Miasmi e umori. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Corbellini, G. (2020). Storie di epidemie e di Covid-19: meno narrazioni e più storie naturali. Scienza in rete, 30 April, https://www.scienzainrete.it/articolo/storie-di-epidemie-e-di-covid-19-meno-narrazioni-e-più-storie-naturali/gilberto-corbellini
Cosmacini, G. (1988). Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia. Dalla peste europea alla guerra mondiale 1348-1918. Milano: Club degli editori.
Cosmacini, G. (2011). L’arte lunga. Storia della medicina dall’antichità a oggi. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Deligny, C. (2020). À quoi sert l’histoire en temps de pandémie? The Conversation, 1 June, https://theconversation.com/a-quoi-sert-lhistoire-en-temps-de-pandemie-138556.
Evans, D., Goldstein, M. & Popova, A. (2015). Health-care worker mortality and the legacy of the Ebola epidemic. The Lancet Global Health, 3 (8), 439-440.
Frankema, E., & Tworek, H. (eds.) (2020). Pandemics that Changed the World. Historical Reflections on COVID-19 [special issue]. Journal of Global History, 15 (3).
Forum on Microbial Threats ¬– Institute of Medicine (US). (2007). Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease. Washington: National Academies Press, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54157/.
Harper, K. (2017). The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Harper, K. (2020). Pandemics now and then. History Today, 70 (7), https://www.historytoday.com/archive/behind-times/pandemics-now-and-then.
Heaton, M. & Falola, T. (2006). Global Explanations versus Local Interpretations: The Historiography of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Africa. History in Africa, 33, 205-230.
Islam, S. et al. (2020). Covid-19 Related infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 103 (4), 1621-1629.
Johnson, N. & Mueller, J. (2002). Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918-1920 “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 76 (1), 105-115.
Jones, D. S. (2020a). History in a Crisis – Lessons for Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine, 382, 1681-1683, doi. 10.1056/NEJMp2004361.
Jones, D. S. (2020b). Covid-19, history, and humility. Centaurus, 62, 370-380.
Lachenal, G., & Thomas, G. (2020). COVID-19: When history has no lessons. History Workshop, 30 March, https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/covid-19-when-history-has-no-lessons/.
Lindemann, M. (2020). The Historian and the Virus. A Time Capsule from Mid-March. Pespectives on History, 58 (5), https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2020/the-historian-and-the-virus-a-time-capsule-from-mid-march.
McNeill, W. (1976). Plagues and Peoples. New York: Anchor Press – Doubleday.
Naphy, W. & Spicer, A. (2004). Plague. Black death and pestilence in Europe. Stroud: Tempus.
Newfield, T. (2020). Nothing was the same. Historical parallels for the coronavirus should be avoided like the plague. The Globe and Mail, 24 April, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-nothing-was-the-same-historical-parallels-for-the-coronavirus-should/.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]. (2020). The territorial impact of COVID-19. Managing the crisis across levels of governments, https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=128_128287-5agkkojaaa&title=The-territorial-impact-of-covid-19-managing-the-crisis-across-levels-of-government.
Oxfam International. (2021). The inequality virus. Policy papers, https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621149/bp-the-inequality-virus-250121-en.pdf.
Patterson, D.K. & Pyle, G.F. (1991). The geography and mortality of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 65 (1), 4-21.
Peckam, R. (2020). COVID-19 and the anti-lessons of history. The Lancet, 395, 850-851, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30468-2.
Philips, H. (2004). The re-appearing shadow of 1918: trends in the historiography of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 21 (1), 121-134.
Quanmen, D. (2012). Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. New York: W.W. Norton.
Rosenberg, Ch. (1989). What is an Epidemic? AIDS in Historical Perspective. Daedalus, 118 (2), 1-17.
Roy, A. (2020). The Pandemic is a Portal. Financial Times, 3 April.
Snowden, F. (2020a). Epidemics and Society. From the Black Death to the Present. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Snowden, F. (2020b). What history can teach us about Covid-19?. Project Syndicate Podcasts. https://www.project-syndicate.org/podcasts/what-history-can-teach-us-about-covid-19.
Spinney, L. (2017). 1918. L’influenza spagnola. La pandemia che cambiò il mondo. Milano: Feltrinelli. English edition (2017): Pale Rider. The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World. New York: Public Affairs.
Taylor, R. (2020). History Lessons. Can we learn from the past? Items. Insights from the social sciences, 16 July, https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/democracy-and-pandemics/history-lessons-can-we-learn-from-the-past/.
Teovanović, P. et al. (2020). Irrational beliefs differentially predict adherence to guidelines and pseudoscientific practices during the covid-19 pandemic. Applied Cognitive Psychology, doi: 10.1002/acp.3770.
Tognotti, E. (2016). La «Spagnola» in Italia. Storia dell’influenza che fece temere la fine del mondo (1918-1919). Milano: FrancoAngeli.
United Nations Development Programe [UNDP] (2020). Covid-19 and Human Development. Assessing the Crisis, Envisioning the Recovery. New York : UNDP, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/covid-19_and_human_development_0.pdf.
Vagneron, F. (2018). La grippe espagnole: une historiographie centenaire revisitée. Ler História, 73, 21-43.
White, A. R. (2020). Historical linkages: epidemic threat, economic risk, and xenophobia. The Lancet, 395, 1250-1251, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30737-6.
Williamson, S. (2007). The Vaccination Controversy: The Rise, Reign and Fall of Compulsory Vaccination for Smallpox. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Winkler, A. (2005). The Medieval Holocaust. The Approach of the Plague and the Destruction of Jews in Germany, 1348-1349. Faculty Publications of the Brigham Young University, 1816, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1816.
Published
2021-07-18
Section
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