With the devastating effects of COVID-19 still rattling the foundations of our global civilization, we live in unprecedented times—or so we might think. But pandemics have been a constant presence throughout human history, as humans and disease have lived side by side for millennia. Over the centuries, our ability to react to these sweeping killers has evolved, most notably through medical breakthroughs that include the development of vaccines.

The story of disease eradication, however, has never been one of simply science—it is political, cultural, and deeply personal. Ranging across continents and centuries, in Foreign Bodies acclaimed historian Simon Schama unpacks the stories of the often-unknown individuals whose pioneering work changed the face of modern health care. Questioning why the occurrence of pandemics appears to be accelerating at an alarming rate, Schama looks into our impact on the natural world and how that in turn is affecting us, all while interrogating how the geopolitics of recent decades has had a devastating effect on global health.

Inspirational and tragic by turns, these are stories of success and failure, of collaboration and persecution, as humanity struggles to work together in the face of one of our most deadly shared enemies: pandemics.