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Imperial Hygiene

A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health

Palgrave Macmillan

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
  2. Tuberculosis: Governing Healthy Citizens

    • Alison Bashford
    Pages 59-80
  3. Leprosy: Segregation and Imperial Hygiene

    • Alison Bashford
    Pages 81-114
  4. Quarantine: Imagining the Geo-body of a Nation

    • Alison Bashford
    Pages 115-136
  5. Sex: Public Health, Social Hygiene and Eugenics

    • Alison Bashford
    Pages 164-185
  6. Conclusion

    • Alison Bashford
    Pages 186-189
  7. Back Matter

    Pages 190-264

About this book

This is a cultural history of borders, hygiene and race. It is about foreign bodies, from Victorian Vaccines to the pathologized interwar immigrant, from smallpox quarantine to the leper colony, from sexual hygiene to national hygiene to imperial hygiene. Taking British colonialism and White Australia as case studies, the book examines public health as spatialized biopolitical governance between 1850 and 1950. Colonial management of race dovetailed with public health into new boundaries of rule, into racialised cordons sanitaires .

Reviews

This book weaves the history of public health, nationalism and race in Australia and the British Empire into a master narrative of imperial projects on hygiene, segregation and borders. Imperial Hygiene broke new ground in the global history of medicine and in the years to come will remain a vital text for scholars working on colonial and global health.'

Dr Pratik Chakrabarti, University of Kent, UK

"Bashford delivers a very innovative study on colonial medicine in the global context of nationalism." - Eva Marie Stolberg, H-Net

"Bashford's book provides a very interesting overarching historical narrative of how spatial management of health and race were central to the process of nation-building in Australia." - Amna Khalid, BJHS

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of History, University of Sydney, Australia

    Alison Bashford

About the author

Alison Bashford is Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge, UK. She has taught Pacific and Australian history at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Harvard University, USA.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access