Pandemics and Politics: Infectious Disease in Historical Perspective

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course will examine the relationship between pandemic disease and political shifts over the past five centuries, centuries in which pandemics influenced economic and political trends including the rise and decline of states, the expansion and contraction of trade, innovation, diplomatic relations, land use and land tenure, labor relations and labor markets, and other core themes relevant to the study of political economy. After grounding in some of the basic history, we will focus on how pandemic and epidemic diseases affect the political economy – i.e. the structures of wealth and power – of the countries and world regions through which they swept.