Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
The End of A Global PoxAmerica and the Eradication of Smallpox in the Cold War Era$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
The End of A Global Pox: America and the Eradication of Smallpox in the Cold War Era

Bob H. Reinhardt

Print publication date: 2015

Print ISBN-13: 9781469624099

Published to North Carolina Scholarship Online: May 2016

DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624099.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.northcarolina.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright University of North Carolina Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in CSO for personal use (for details see http://www.northcarolina.universitypressscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 13 June 2018

Epilogue

Epilogue

Celebrating a Complicated Legacy

Chapter:
(p.190) Epilogue
Source:
The End of A Global Pox
Author(s):

Bob H. Reinhardt

Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press
DOI:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624099.003.0007

This epilogue considers the legacy of the global smallpox eradication program. It identifies the tension between the celebration of the disease's eradication and equivocation on the destruction of the last remaining stocks of variola, the smallpox virus. It details how victory over smallpox inspired campaigns against other diseases; the continued research into smallpox as scientists seek to build on their mastery of the disease; and how the eradication of smallpox shaped understandings of and responses to the Ebola outbreak. The chapter concludes that living in the post-smallpox eradication world means both appreciating and reckoning with the program's successes, ironies, and complicated legacies. It means recognizing where the remarkable accomplishment of smallpox eradication came from, including the political and ideological contexts—namely, Cold War competition and American Great Society-era liberal idealism—that helped make the eradication program a reality.

Keywords:   smallpox eradication, global disease eradication, smallpox virus, variola

North Carolina Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .