Medicine on a Larger Scale

In a world of growing health inequity and ecological injustice, how do we revitalize medicine and public health to tackle new problems? This groundbreaking collection draws together case studies of social medicine in the Global South, radically shifting our understanding of social science in healthcare. Looking beyond a narrative originating in nineteenth-century Europe, a team of expert contributors explores a far broader set of roots and branches, with nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Oceania, the Middle East, and Asia. This plural approach reframes and decolonizes the study of social medicine, highlighting connections to social justice and health equity, social science and state formation, bottom-up community initiatives, grassroots movements, and an array of revolutionary sensibilities. As a truly global history, this book offers a more usable past to imagine a new politics of social medicine for medical professionals and healthcare workers worldwide. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Anne Kveim Lie is Professor of Medical History, Department of Community Medicine and Global Health, University of Oslo.

Jeremy A. Greene is William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Warwick Anderson is Janet Dora Hine Professor of Politics, Governance, and Ethics in Health, based in the School of Social and Political Sciences and the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney.