Building the Worlds That Kill Us: Disease, Death, and Inequality in American History

Across American history, the question of whose lives are long and healthy and whose lives are short and sick has always been shaped by the social and economic order. From the dispossession of Indigenous people and the horrors of slavery to infectious diseases spreading in overcrowded tenements and the vast environmental contamination caused by industrialization, and through climate change and pandemics in the twenty-first century, those in power have left others behind.

Through the lens of death and disease, Building the Worlds That Kill Us provides a new way of understanding the history of the United States from the colonial era to the present. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz demonstrate that the changing rates and kinds of illnesses reflect social, political, and economic structures and inequalities of race, class, and gender. These deep inequities determine the disparate health experiences of rich and poor, Black and white, men and women, immigrant and native-born, boss and worker, Indigenous and settler. This book underscores that powerful people and institutions have always seen some lives as more valuable than others, and it emphasizes how those who have been most affected by the disparities in rates of disease and death have challenged and changed these systems. Ultimately, this history shows that unequal outcomes are a choice--and we can instead collectively make decisions that foster life and health.

David Rosner is professor of history and Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, where he also directs the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health.

Gerald Markowitz is distinguished professor of interdisciplinary studies and history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. In 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Rosner and Markowitz are also the authors of Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (2002); Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the On-Going Struggle to Protect Workers’ Health (new and expanded edition, 2006); and Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children (2013), among other books.