The Last Great Plague of Colonial India

Review

"The Last Great Plague of Colonial India is a compelling work that revisits plague in the light of public and scientific deliberations in a complex colonial environment. It is a signifcant contribution to critical understandings of the synergy between science, policies, society and the social trajectory of disease during global pandemic situations." - Poonam Bala, Professor Extraordinarius, University of South Africa

"This is a remarkably comprehensive and pulsating history of the plague of 1896. It narrates how the plague initially overwhelmed the authorities and residents in the unsanitary and crowded city of Bombay and how the city learned to cope with it through human resilience, scientific intervention, and urban planning. It then takes that narrative to other parts of India and various parts of the world. A story of fear, death, colonial governance, and resistance, The Last Great Plague in Colonial India leaves readers with the lasting legacy of the pandemic on India and the world." - Pratik Chakrabarti, National Endowment for the Humanities-Cullen Chair in History & Medicine, University of Houston

"In this meticulously researched and fluently argued monograph Natasha Sarkar outlines the story of the last great plague epidemic in India in 1897 in vivid detail. State policy, indigenous responses, and the experiments of a scientist such as Haffkine unfold in a story that strikingly resonates with the present-day panic associated with Covid. The practices of innoculation, Ayurvedic medicine, missionary zeal and sanitation in cities are all explored with remarkable facility. This is a must read for students interested in the history of medicine and epidemic disease both globally and in Asia." - Vinita Damodaran, Professor of South Asian History and Director, Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex