Plagues and the Paradox of Progress Why the World Is Getting Healthier in Worrisome Ways

Introduction --The Age-old balance between host and parasite --Determinants of history, agents of human tragedy --The different paths to progress --Why worry in the Age of Miracles? --A worrisome future is not inevitable --1.How the world starts getting better --Death, disease, and the fall of prehistoric man --The path to better health in wealthier nations --A better world begins as a more unequal one --2. --Diseases of conquest and colony --The colonial and military roots of global health --The path to better health in poorer nations --Death and demography --The legacy of ebola --The difference that health aid makes --3.Diseases of childhood --A child survival revolution --China's other great leap forward --Is healthier wealthier? --The (potential) dividends of demography --Sunny in Nairobi, with a chance of storms --Cell phones, not factories --The perils of youth --4. --Diseases of settlement --Cholera and the white death --A simple solution --Poor world cities --The perils of growing naturally --Climate and the environment --The Tunis effect --Returning to Dhaka --5.Diseases of place --The growth industry in Agadez, Niger --People, not just potatoes --Migration as the history of disease --The world is getting better in worrisome ways --6. --The exoneration of William H. Stewart --Confronting the complex of multiple causation --The role of aid in adapting to the decline of infectious diseases --The myth of the good epidemic.