BOOK REVIEW: Foreign Bodies – of vaccines and antivaxxers
A new book by historian Simon Schama explains the heroic history of vaccines — and why so many people loathe their development
“Biology and ecology, and the play between them, are the ultimate shapers of human destiny,” writes British historian Simon Schama in the first paragraph of Foreign Bodies. It’s a point that’s been lost in the hubris of human development — the Ages of Reason, Discovery and, now, Information, bracketing the most audaciously disruptive, the Industrial Revolution. We think we rule the world, but we are at the mercy of things we cannot — or choose not to — see.
Where Schama goes with this — sometimes implied in measured tones, sometimes vehemently — is that Covid has been an illustration of our continuing stupidity. ..
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