A00440 - Book of the Month for the Month of November 2025: Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease by Alexandre I. R. White

 This coming Thursday, November 6, I hope to be able to "facilitate" a Black Alumni Memorial Service.  The Service will be a virtual service and will begin at 7pm.  I am looking forward to this Memorial Service because I hope to briefly chat with Walter White, Class of 1976, and Cuthbert "Tuffy" Simpkins, Class of 1969.  In a preliminary chat with Walter, he mentioned that his son, Alexandre White, Class of 2010, had recently published a book that had received some acclaim.  After Walter educated me a bit about the significance of Alexandre's book, I looked it up and became intrigued.  I am so intrigued that I am making Alexandre's book Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease as my Book of the Month for the Month of November 2025.  

Hope to see some of you on Thursday.  Until then, enjoy the book.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

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Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease Paperback – January 24, 2023

by Alexandre I. R. White (Author)

5.0  5.0 out of 5 stars    (2)

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For many residents of Western nations, COVID-19 was the first time they experienced the effects of an uncontrolled epidemic. This is in part due to a series of little-known regulations that have aimed to protect the global north from epidemic threats for the last two centuries, starting with International Sanitary Conferences in 1851 and culminating in the present with the International Health Regulations, which organize epidemic responses through the World Health Organization. Unlike other equity-focused global health initiatives, their mission—to establish "the maximum protections from infectious disease with the minimum effect on trade and traffic"—has remained the same since their founding. Using this as his starting point, Alexandre White reveals the Western capitalist interests, racism and xenophobia, and political power plays underpinning the regulatory efforts that came out of the project to manage the international spread of infectious disease. He examines how these regulations are formatted; how their framers conceive of epidemic spread; and the types of bodies and spaces it is suggested that these regulations map onto. Proposing a modified reinterpretation of Edward Said's concept of orientalism, White invites us to consider "epidemic orientalism" as a framework within which to explore the imperial and colonial roots of modern epidemic disease control.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"White writes critically and necessarily on the historical actions taken to prevent the spread of infectious disease. With great care, he deftly unpacks the racial and economic costs of global health initiatives and examines the ideals behind their genesis. The book is a remarkable and necessary re-thinking of medical history through the lens of 'epidemic orientalism'."―Hollie Sherwood-Martin, The Lancet Infectious Diseases

"Over the course of his monograph, White successfully illustrates how an epidemic Orientalist worldview ultimately weakens epidemic responses and places the health of people on both sides of an imagined divide at a greater risk.... Historians and medical anthropologists and sociologists looking for a thoughtful synthesis of several intellectual frameworks for understanding medicine and empire will find Epidemic Orientalism a useful text."―Molly Walker, H-Sci-Med-Tech

"Backed by archival, historical, and interview data, White pulls off an intellectual feat that places him next to Edward Said['s Orientalism]....Highly recommended."―T. Niazi, CHOICE

"Alexandre White's brilliant book Epidemic Orientalism provides readers with essential context for understanding how social, political, and economic forces―including racism, xenophobia, and racial and colonial capitalism―animate modern epidemic disease control and pandemic governance. While White's analysis takes readers on a long historical tour through the architecture of international pandemic governance beginning in the nineteenth century, the themes that emerge from these earlier periods will be eerily familiar to contemporary readers grappling with Western governmental and international responses to the COVID-19 pandemic."―Courtney Boen, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"Epidemic Orientalism stands out as a brilliant and timely intervention to not just ongoing discussions of epidemics, but also to the burgeoning studies of racism, racial capitalism, and (post-)colonialism from a global sociological perspective."―Sahan S. Karatasli, American Journal of Sociology

About the Author

Alexandre I. R. White is Assistant Professor of Sociology and the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He is Associate Director for JHU's Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine.