Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of the British Armed Forces during the Seven Years' War ISBN: 9780226180144 Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / University of Chicago Press Digital rights:Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited Subjects: Modern History (1700 to 1945);
The Seven Years' War, often called the first global war, spanned North America, the West Indies, Europe, and India.nbsp; In these locations diseases such as scurvy, smallpox, and yellow fever killed far more than combat did, stretching the resources of European states.
Innbsp; Disease, War, and the Imperial State , Erica Charters demonstrates how disease played a vital role in shaping strategy and campaigning, British state policy, and imperial relations during the Seven Years' War. Military medicine was a crucial component of the British war effort; it was central to both eighteenth-century scientific innovation and the moral authority of the British state. Looking beyond the traditional focus of the British state as a fiscal war-making machine, Charters uncovers an imperial state conspicuously attending to the welfare of its armed forces, investing in medical research, and responding to local public opinion.nbsp; Charters shows military medicine to be a credible scientific endeavor that was similarly responsive to local conditions and demands.
Disease, War, and the Imperial State nbsp;is an engaging study of early modern warfare and statecraft, one focused on the endless and laborious task of managing manpower in the face of virulent disease in the field, political opposition at home, and the clamor of public opinion in both Britain and its colonies.
Erica Charters is associate professor of the history of medicine at the University of Oxford. Her research examines how war, disease, and state formation intersect during the early modern period and the relationship between war and civil society. She is coeditor of Civilians and War in Europe 1615-1815 .
