New Reviews for Imperial Bodies in London

Two reviews have recently been published for Imperial Bodies in London!

Historian of medicine and empire Anna Greenwood reviewed the book for Social History of Medicine.

‘While much has been written about the operation of western medicine in colonial contexts, or the networks between colonies, very little work has focused on London as a key site for the creation of colonial medical knowledge. Hussey breaks this mould, arguing that in the late nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, metropolitan medicine was imperial medicine, and therefore it is false to distinguish two separate, even if parallel, discourses…Hussey is a great writer in the making. To take just a few examples of her lovely turns of phrase, from her final quarter of the book, she elegantly and wittily describes Manson’s home in London as ‘a veritable ark of tropical disease’ (p. 145), highlighting the ‘the mobility of microscopy’ through the slides and samples that were sent through imperial spaces to facilitate Manson’s research (p. 160). London, Hussey concludes, was a key player within ‘a networked empire in motion’ (p. 182).’

Historian of science and the environment Vanessa Heggie has written a review for H-Net Reviews:

‘While the development of tropical medicine as an explicitly imperial medical special‐ ism has received considerable historical scrutiny, Hussey makes a convincing case for paying more attention to tropical diseases “at home.” She brings something new and productive to the story by eschewing the traditional parasitical and infectious diseases… [Imperial Bodies in London] it is eminently excerptable for teaching. I will be domesticating my sessions on tropical medicine by including this story of Patrick Manson “at home.” I can see livers, sunstroke, and couching as prompts to both undergraduate and graduate students to seek out their own case studies of everyday, understudied diseases that show, as Hussey convincingly argues over the course of the whole book “the human cost of British imperialism at home” (p. 181), as well as the ways in which medicine on British soil was just as much imperial medicine as that practiced in Calcutta or Nairobi.’

If you are interested in reviewing the book, please get in touch with me or directly with University of Pittsburgh Press to request a review copy.