We are pleased to offer for review ‘How Politics Makes Us Sick: Neoliberal Epidemics’ by Durham University’s very own Ted Schrecker and Clare Bambra (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Expressions of interest are welcome from across the medical humanities, but this book may be suited to those interested in the social sciences.
‘Since the early 1980s, neoliberalism or ‘market fundamentalism’ has dominated politics and economics across the globe. In this important book, Ted Schrecker and Clare Bambra consider the effects of over three decades of these policies with particular reference to the US and the UK.
They focus on obesity, insecurity, austerity, and inequality, arguing that each represents a ‘neoliberal epidemic’ – neoliberal because they are implicated in the rise of neoliberal politics; and epidemics because they have been rapidly transmitted across international populations at a rate seen in epidemics of biological contagions. Crucially, the authors argue that neoliberal epidemics require a political cure in the form of a revitalised and social democratic welfare state’.
If you would like to write a review on ‘How Politics Makes Us Sick’ (no more than 1,000 words in length), then please email our reviews editor with a short explanation of why you are well placed to review the book.