Apocalypse Then and Now

Disparities in Death: Smallpox and Social Inequalities

Katalin Buzasi, Tim Riswick & Sanne Muurling 13 July 202120 January 2023

Smallpox was the first contagious disease for which a vaccine was invented. As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, Sanne Muurling, Tim Riswick and Katalin Buzasi ask how social inequalities shaped the last smallpox epidemic in…

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Pandemic Politics During the Renaissance

Matthew Vester 18 June 20207 January 2023

The sixteenth-century struggle to balance biological and economic well-being implicated a surprising number of authorities, but not everyone accepted their discipline. Matthew Vester explores in Pandemic Politics During the Renaissance.

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COVID-19 and Health Inequality

Agnes Arnold-Forster, Caitjan Gainty & Lucas Canino 8 June 202029 October 2022

COVID-19 is not an equal opportunity disease. Even as politicians, managers, and UN officials give us pep talks about how we’re all in this together, segments of our society are having vastly different experiences of this pandemic.

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Renaissance Lockdown: How Venice tried to control the plague

Rosa Salzberg 3 June 20207 January 2023

With Italy on the frontline of Europe's Coronavirus outbreak, Rosa Salzberg examines how Renaissance Venice established world-leading measures to combat the plague, strategies we are still relying on today.

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The Black Death and the future of history after Covid-19

Bruce Campbell 26 May 202013 January 2023

Bruce Campbell argues that interactions between climate and disease during the fourteenth-century Black Death can inform insights into Covid-19 and alter historians' understanding of the nature of historical change.

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History Does Have Something to Say

Virginia Berridge 20 May 202012 January 2023

How can the history of the response to the 2009-10 swine flu epidemic illuminate the British government's response to the COVID crisis? Virginia Berridge explores.

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The legacy of pandemics in the community: 1918 and 2020

Andrew Jackson 16 May 202024 November 2022

What can the British provincial press tell us about the way pandemics have historically been experienced at a local level? Andrew Jackson proposes that such coverage offers vital insights into community-led responses to global public health…

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Sensing the Past in the Present: Coronavirus and the Bubonic Plague

Claire Turner 23 April 20207 January 2023

What can we learn from comparing past and present sensory experiences of illness? The senses are an essential avenue through which we navigate understandings and responses to disease. Further research into how people sense illness, both…

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The Black Death, COVID-19 and Universal Basic Income

Jane Whittle 18 April 20207 January 2023

Epidemics are "moments of fluidity when parts of existing societies are laid bare as not fit for purpose". Looking at the history of the Black Death, Jane Whittle asks whether our current crisis could lead to new solutions to entrenched…

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Behaviour Change, Public Health and ‘The Public’

Alex Mold 14 April 202029 October 2022

How did behaviour change become an integral part of public health strategies in the twentieth century? And what insights can this history offer in tackling the unique challenge of Covid-19?

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Awaiting Apocalypse

Kat Hill 8 April 202029 October 2022

In our "Apocalypse Then and Now" feature, Kat Hill explores the sixteenth century world of German Anabaptism and asks what it means to believe that you are living through the End of the World.

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Solitude and Covid-19

Barbara Taylor & David Vincent 6 April 20207 January 2023

These are exceptional times. But the dangers of solitude are a very old theme. Barbara Taylor and David Vincent reflect on the fine historical line between loneliness and solitude in light of Covid-19.

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COVID-19: When history has no lessons

Guillaume Lachenal & Gaëtan Thomas 30 March 202012 January 2023

What value do the lessons of the past have in shaping strategies for managing the COVID-19 outbreak? In this article, Guillaume Lachenal and Gaëtan Thomas argue that an over-reliance on the allure of 'pandemic precedents' needs to be…

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Pox Romana and War as a Virus Vector

Pippo Carmona 26 March 202029 October 2022

This piece is part of HWO's feature on ‘Apocalypse Then and Now’. The feature brings together radical reflections and historic perspectives on catastrophe and calamity. How have crises (both real and imagined), and responses to them,…

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A Pandemic in Boris Johnson’s ‘Land of Liberty’

Matthew McCormack 22 March 202012 January 2023

Matthew McCormack sets the UK government's response to Coronavirus in historic context, shedding some light on British responses to the Coronavirus pandemic, in contrast with the responses from other parts of the world.

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Football and Epidemics: A Matter of Life and Death

Tosh Warwick 20 March 20207 January 2023

The Coronavirus has brought chaos to global sport with major football matches played behind closed doors and postponements widespread across elite football, despite Government insistence that the show would go on. …

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Apocalypse Then and Now

What

Where

When

Series

Disparities in Death: Smallpox and Social Inequalities

Pandemic Politics During the Renaissance

COVID-19 and Health Inequality

Renaissance Lockdown: How Venice tried to control the plague

The Black Death and the future of history after Covid-19

History Does Have Something to Say

The legacy of pandemics in the community: 1918 and 2020

Sensing the Past in the Present: Coronavirus and the Bubonic Plague

The Black Death, COVID-19 and Universal Basic Income

Behaviour Change, Public Health and ‘The Public’

Awaiting Apocalypse

Solitude and Covid-19

COVID-19: When history has no lessons

Pox Romana and War as a Virus Vector

A Pandemic in Boris Johnson’s ‘Land of Liberty’

Football and Epidemics: A Matter of Life and Death