In Parasites, Pathogens, and Progress, Robert McGuire                 and Philip Coelho integrate biological and economic perspectives into an explanation                 of the historical development of humanity and the economy, paying particular                 attention to the American experience, its history and development. In their                 path-breaking examination of the impact of population growth and parasitic diseases,                 they contend that interpretations of history that minimize or ignore the physical                 environment are incomplete or wrong.The authors emphasize the                 paradoxical impact of population growth and density on progress. An increased                 population leads to increased market size, specialization, productivity, and living                 standards. Simultaneously, increased population density can provide an ecological                 niche for pathogens and parasites that prey upon humanity, increasing morbidity and                 mortality. The tension between diseases and progress continues, with progress                 dominant since the late 1800s.Integral to their story are the differential effects                 of diseases on different ethnic (racial) groups. McGuire and Coelho show that the                 Europeanization of the Americas, for example, was caused by Old World diseases                 unwittingly brought to the New World, not by superior technology and weaponry. The                 decimation of Native Americans by pathogens vastly exceeded that caused by war and                 human predation.The authors combine biological and economic                 analyses to explain the concentration of African slaves in the American South.                 African labor was more profitable in the South because Africans' evolutionary                 heritage enabled them to resist the diseases that became established there;                 conversely, Africans' ancestral heritage made them susceptible to northern                 "cold-weather" diseases. European disease resistance and susceptibilities                 were the opposite regionally. Differential regional disease ecologies thus led to a                 heritage of racial slavery and racism.

Parasites, Pathogens, and Progress. Diseases and Economic Development PDF

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