The Yellow Flag
Quarantine and the British Mediterranean World, 1780–1860

Examines British engagement with the Mediterranean quarantine system to show how fear of disease drew Britain into a Continental biopolity.

Alex Chase-Levenson (Author)

9781108707282, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 October 2022

319 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.465 kg

'The Yellow Flag will reward readers interested in the history of health, diplomacy, and travel in the Mediterranean and beyond.' Kathleen Frederickson, Victorian Studies

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, quarantine laws in all Western European nations mandated the detention of every inbound trader, traveller, soldier, sailor, merchant, missionary, letter, and trade good arriving from the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Most of these quarantines occurred in large, ominous fortresses in Mediterranean port cities. Alex Chase-Levenson examines Britain's engagement with this Mediterranean border regime from multiple angles. He explores how quarantine practice laid the foundations for the state provision of public health and constituted an early example of European integration. Situated at the intersection of political, cultural, diplomatic, and medical history, The Yellow Flag captures the texture of quarantine as an experience, its power as an administrative precedent, and its novelty as an example of a continental border built from the ground up by low-level bureaucrats.

Introduction
Part I. Mediterranean Currents: 1. Universal agitation
2. Locating the British Mediterranean world
Part II. Lazarettos, Health Boards, and the Building of a Biopolity: 3. Governing quarantine
4. 'A sort of hospital-prison'
5. A European system
Part III. Imagining the Plague: 6. Plague and 'civilization'
7. A prescription for England's condition
Part IV. Old Patterns, New Cordons: 8. Quarantine and empire
9. Mutually assured deconstruction
Conclusion: Plagueomania
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]