The American revolution happened in the midst of a smallpox epidemic. In one of the timeliest history books of the publishing season, historian Andrew Wehrman visits the podcast to talk about what the patriots of the American Revolution and the founding fathers thought about public health. His book Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution is a must read for anyone who cares about the relationship between political liberty and the government's role in preventing disease in eighteenth-century America.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices