Audio only
Length16h 15m
About this audiobook
A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama
Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.
Characteristically, Schama’s message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope – in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums – are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai.
At the heart of it all is an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as “the saviour of mankind” for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.
Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, “there are no foreigners, only familiars.”
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.9 (751)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreHistory, Science and Nature, Health and Wellness
Length16 hrs 15 mins
Narrated bySimon Schama
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateSep 19, 2023
LanguageEnglish
More from Simon Schama
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith3h 8m4.7 (7.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
Days of Love and Rage: A Story of RevolutionAnand Gopal22h 36m4.7 (584)$34 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Story of BirdsSteve Brusatte11h 49m4.6 (401)$29 · $0.00
Life On Earth 40th Anniversary EditionSir David Attenborough12h 27m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
LiftoffEric Berger9h 4m4.6 (9.5K)$29 · $0.00
Black Earth WisdomLeah Penniman11h 54m4.6 (577)$8 · $0.00
Total Cat MojoJackson Galaxy10h 13m4.5 (8.4K)$23 · $0.00
My Life Among the UnderdogsTia Torres5h 51m4.5 (4K)$24 · $0.00
What It Takes to Save a LifeKwane Stewart6h4.6 (556)$24 · $0.00
Pastoral SongJames Rebanks8h 35m4.5 (12K)$26 · $0.00
How Stella Learned to TalkChristina Hunger7h4.5 (10.9K)$24 · $0.00
Craig & FredCraig Grossi8h 6m4.5 (9.6K)$26 · $0.00
Celebrating BirdsNatalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez6h 47m4.6 (330)$24 · $0.00
Saving JemimaJulie Zickefoose4h 59m4.5 (749)$20 · $0.00
Will's Red CoatTom Ryan8h 23m4.5 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Of Time and TurtlesSy Montgomery10h 34m4.5 (5K)$29 · $0.00
THE WOLF TRILOGY: Call of the Wild, White Fang & The Son of the WolfJack London17h 31m4.5 (2.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
Zen and the Art of Saving the PlanetThich Nhat Hanh9h 20m4.5 (3.9K)$29 · $0.00
BLACK BEAUTY (With Original Illustrations)Anna Sewell7h 31m4.5 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
Your Body Already KnowsNidhi Pandya Bhanshali9h 7m4.7 (360)$16 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
Hour of the HeartIrvin D. Yalom, Benjamin Yalom8h 19m4.6 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
The Yoga Sutras of PatanjaliPatanjali4h 8m4.5 (18.5K)$6 · $0.00
The Lost VoiceGreta Morgan8h 30m4.7 (285)$26 · $0.00
Healthy Kids, Happy KidsElisa Song14h 18m4.6 (760)$33 · $0.00
Eat It!Jordan Syatt, Michael Vacanti4h 40m4.6 (1.5K)$20 · $0.00
Consent Laid BareChanel Contos7h 11m4.5 (1.7K)$24 · $0.00
How to Make Disease DisappearRangan Chatterjee5h 26m4.5 (3.5K)$24 · $0.00
The Complete Herbal (Annotated)Nicholas Culpeper29h 8m4.5 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
A Plague Upon Our HouseScott W. Atlas MD10h 37m4.5 (3.4K)$20 · $0.00
The Gift of TherapyIrvin Yalom7h 39m4.5 (38.8K)$26 · $0.00
EarlySarah DiGregorio9h 47m4.5 (1.3K)$29 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
The 36-Hour DayNancy L. Mace, Peter V. Rabins17h 13m4.4 (9.2K)$28 · $0.00
FlooredSara Reardon10h 36m4.5 (1K)$29 · $0.00
Radical RemissionKelly A. Turner9h 26m4.4 (8.1K)$29 · $0.00
The Sinatra SolutionStephen T. Sinatra MD9h4.5 (899)$20 · $0.00
The Songaminute ManSimon McDermott6h 12m4.5 (280)$24 · $0.00
Sometimes BrilliantLarry Brilliant12h 27m4.5 (954)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx, Friedrich Engels2h 13m3.9 (252.7K)$2 · $0.00
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Annotated)Frederick Engels3h 35m4.3 (29.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Autobiography of Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson8h 32m4.0 (2.8K)$1.99 · $0.00
Capital and IdeologyThomas Piketty48h 57m4.4 (7.2K)$40
Rebel in the RanksBrad S. Gregory9h 46m4.1 (502)$29 · $0.00
Rock Me on the WaterRonald Brownstein16h 15m4.0 (2.4K)$33 · $0.00
Religion and the Rise of CapitalismR. H. Tawney10h 12m4.1 (9.1K)$2.30
On the Social ContractJean-Jacques Rousseau5h 2m4.0 (69.6K)$14
On The Duty of Civil DisobedienceDavid Thoreau1h 6m4.0 (115K)$1 · $0.00
What's Wrong with the WorldChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-19366h 13m4.2 (5.7K)Free
On the Duty of Civil DisobedienceHenry David Thoreau52m4.1 (27.5K)$5
The Complete Works of O. HenryO. Henry114h 22m4.4 (3.5K)$1.99 · $0.00
American LiteratureFrancis E. Skipp PhD4h 42m4.0 (114)$14
HONORING OBAMAU.S. Government7h 44m$1.99 · $0.00
The Foundation of one NationThomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay26h 31m$1.99 · $0.00
A Just and Generous NationHarold Holzer, Norton Garfinkle10h 10m4.0 (128)$20 · $0.00
VariaAgnes Repplier4h 54m$2.40
The Ukrainian Icon 11th - 18th centuries (From Byzantine origins to the baroque)Liudmila Miliayeva2h 59m$16 · $0.00
Address To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (Annotated)Martin Luther5h 3m3.9 (135)$2 · $0.00
Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II (Vol. 1-3) (Annotated)Henry Hallam65h 44m4.0 (59)$2 · $0.00