The European Perspective on Pandemics

This review essay explores the potential of a European perspective on the history of epidemics and pandemics over the last three centuries. To this end, it follows Benoît Majerus’ proposal to distinguish four different “European” perspectives on the history of medicine. Europe is simultaneously an imaginary, geographical, imperial, and integrative space. As an imaginary space (1), “European” ideas about pandemics reveal a specific conception of public health and the state; as a geographical space (2), many historical case studies examined the development of comparable “European” practices at the national level; as an imperial space (3), it is necessary to provincialize Europe and ask about knowledge production and practices in non-European countries; and as an integrative space (4), European responses to pandemics and epidemics represent a neglected but important aspect of European integration. This essay can only suggest that the European perspective is an interesting analytical category for both the history of pandemics and the history of “Europe.”