
From the Midwife's Bag to the Patient's File
Public Health in Eastern and Southeastern Europe
Central European University Press
Published on 10. January 2018
Book
Hardback
358 pages
978-963-386-208-7 (ISBN)
Description
This volume offers an analysis of the intertwined relationship between public health and the biopolitical dimensions of state- and nation building in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. It challenges the idea of diverging paths towards modernity of Europe's western and eastern countries by not only identifying ideas, discourses and practices of "solving" public health issues that were shared among political regimes in the region; it also uncovers the ways in which, since the late nineteenth century, the biopolitical organization of the state both originated from and shaped an emerging common European framework. The broad range of local case studies stretches from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Greece and Hungary, to Poland, Serbia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Taking a time span that begins in the late nineteenth century and ends in the post-socialist era, the book makes an original contribution to scholarship examining the relationship between public health, medicine, and state- and nation building in Europe's long twentieth century. Close readings and dense descriptions of local discourses and practices of "public" health help to reflect on the transnational and global entanglements in the sphere of public health. In doing so, this volume facilitates comparisons on the regional, European, and global level.
Reviews / Votes
"Obwohl oeffentliche Gesundheitsfuersorge einen wesentlichen Bestandteil des nation building im Prozess der Modernisierung, Nationalisierung und Institutionalisierung von Staaten darstellt, beschraenkte sich die historische Forschung bisher vornehmlich auf den anglo-amerikanischen und westeuropaeischen Teil der Welt. Wie in vielen anderen Bereichen auch wurden ostmittel- und suedosteuropaeische Staaten, ohnehin mit dem Stigma der Rueckstaendigkeit belegt, kaum in die Analysen einbezogen. Die Herausgeberinnen des vorliegenden Bandes halten sich indessen nicht lange mit Klagen ueber diese Schieflage auf, sondern formulieren die weitreichende Hypothese: 'with our focus on public health, we argue that the paths to twentieth-century modern and late modern statehoods were, in fact, not so different between the 'East' and the 'West' of Europe.' Die methodische und thematische Vielfalt, die nicht mit Beliebigkeit verwechselt werden darf, macht diesen Sammelband zu einer sehr empfehlenswerten Lektuere. Denn er resuemiert nicht nur den Forschungsstand, sondern bietet sorgsam herausgearbeitete Antworten und darueber hinaus mannigfaltige Anknuepfungspunkte fuer zukuenftige innovative Forschungen, die die komparativen und Transferhistorischen Potentiale der vorgestellten Ansaetze noch weiter ausschoepfen." * Bohemia * "La coleccion de doce trabajos reunidos por Karge, Kind-Kovacs y Bernasconi en torno a la sanidad de los siglos XIX y XX en el sureste de Europa se presenta muy correctamente, encabezada por una introduccion, firmada por los editores, a la que siguen doce capitulos separados en tres apartados por orden cronologico, una bibliografia reunida, lista de autores e indice de materias. La impresion es elegante, los margenes comodos y el texto se puede seguir bien. El libro se lee con agrado, los casos son interesantes y variados tematicamente y estan bien abordados, aunque hay logicas diferencias en una autoria tan amplia. Por destacar alguno, me inclino por el especialmente ingenioso capitulo sobre las matronas, firmado por una de las editoras, Sara Bernasconi, que es una muestra excelente del llamado material turn en la historiografia de la ciencia." * Dynamis *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Budapest
Hungary
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academic
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
672 gr
ISBN-13
978-963-386-208-7 (9789633862087)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Sara Bernasconi | Friederike Kind-Kovacs | Heike Karge
From the Midwife's Bag to the Patient's File
Public Health in Eastern and Southeastern Europe
E-Book
01/2018
1st Edition
Central European University Press
€98.99
Available for download
Persons
Sara Bernasconi defended her PhD in history in July 2017 at the University of Zurich with a dissertation about Habsburg's Midwives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She studied History and Slavic Linguistics at the Universities in Zurich, Basel, and Zagreb.
Friederike Kind-Kovacs is Assistant Professor at the Chair for Southeast and East European History, University of Regensburg and a postdoctoral fellow of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg/Munich).
Heike Karge is Assistant Professor at the Chair for Southeast and East European History, University of Regensburg.
Friederike Kind-Kovacs is Assistant Professor at the Chair for Southeast and East European History, University of Regensburg and a postdoctoral fellow of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg/Munich).
Heike Karge is Assistant Professor at the Chair for Southeast and East European History, University of Regensburg.
Content
List of Figures, Acknowledgments, Introduction, PART I. Medical Agents and Modern State Building, PART II. Public Health After Europe's World Wars, PART III. Regulating Societies After 1945: State-Socialist Policies and Legacies, Collective Bibliography, List of Contributors, Index