1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910254776103321

Autore

Lynteris Christos

Titolo

Ethnographic Plague : Configuring Disease on the Chinese-Russian Frontier / / by Christos Lynteris

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-59685-6

9781137596857

1-137-59684-8

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xix, 199 pages) : 3 illustrations

Disciplina

951

Soggetti

China—History

Russia—History

Europe, Eastern—History

Social history

History of China

Russian, Soviet, and East European History

Social History

History

China ethnology

Siberia ethnology

Mongolia ethnology

China

China Manchuria

Manchuria

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sommario/riassunto

Challenging the concept that since the discovery of the plague bacillus in 1894 the study of the disease was dominated by bacteriology, Ethnographic Plague argues for the role of ethnography as a vital contributor to the configuration of plague at the turn of the nineteenth



century. With a focus on research on the Chinese-Russian frontier, where a series of pneumonic plague epidemics shook the Chinese, Russian and Japanese Empires, this book examines how native Mongols and Buryats came to be understood as holding a traditional knowledge of the disease. Exploring the forging and consequences of this alluring theory, this book seeks to understand medical fascination with culture, so as to underline the limitations of the employment of the latter as an explanatory category in the context of infectious disease epidemics, such as the recent SARS and Ebola outbreaks.