Disease in African History by Gerald W. Hartwig, K. David Patterson, Mario Joaquim Azevedo (1978, Book, Illustrated)

Pre-dating the AIDS/HIV pandemic in Africa and elsewhere, this scholarly anthology of essays on various diseases in African history was a groundbreaking study 30 years ago. It received wide attention in scholarly journals as an important work in its field. Although the essays themselves are not clearly connected except for the fact that each deals with the theme of the book's title, together they form a body of research that should be consulted by anyone interested in the theme of disease and public health in history. The writing is smooth despite the fact that several chapters were written in English as a second language (the final publication was skillfully edited to compensate for this, and thus is quite readable).

I bought this book because Gerald W. Hartwig, one of the editor/authors, was a professor in my graduate program at the time the book was published, and I was always sorry that I didn't buy a copy when it was new. I was thrilled to discover a copy on half.com!