Why read The Province of Affliction?

Book cover of The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England

Book description

How do we balance individual and collective responsibility for illness? This question, which continues to resonate today, was especially pressing in colonial America, where episodic bouts of sickness were pervasive, chronic ails common, and epidemics all too familiar.

In The Province of Affliction, Ben Mutschler explores the surprising roles that…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Province of Affliction as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Andrew M. Wehrman

Author

While hundreds of books have been written on early New England, Ben Mutschler deftly paints a portrait of life in New England “with sickness at its center.” He thoroughly integrates family struggles over illness and the demands placed on local governments into the story of the social and political development of this region that has long valued public health even as it has also endured tragic circumstances.

From Andrew's list on understanding health and politics in the early US.