The Human Disease: How We Create Pandemics, from Our Bodies to Our Beliefs

How the very fact of being human makes us vulnerable to pandemics--and gives us the power to save ourselves. The COVID-19 pandemic won't be our last--because what makes us vulnerable to pandemics also makes us human. That is the uncomfortable but all-too-timely message of The Human Disease, which travels through history and around the globe to examine how and why pandemics are an inescapable threat of our own making. Drawing on dozens of disciplines--from medicine, epidemiology, and microbiology to anthropology, sociology, ecology, and neuroscience--as well as a unique expertise in public education about pandemic risks, biological anthropologist Sabrina Sholts identifies the human traits and tendencies that double as pandemic liabilities, from the anatomy that defines us to the misperceptions that divide us. Weaving together a wealth of personal experiences, scientific findings, and historical stories, Sholts brings dramatic and much-needed clarity to one of the most profound challenge