As a critique of biomedicalization and triumphalist interpretation of public health history, the social history of public health tends to paint a polarized and dichotomic picture of powerful health experts versus susceptible patients. Conscious of various competing narratives, The International Campaign Against Leprosy, 1948-2005, authored by Jo Robertson, takes a departure from such cliché to build a non-linear and non-dichotomic narrative of the international anti-leprosy campaign, while maintaining a critical distance from triumphalist interpretation. Consulting a wide range of empirical sources, including materials from multiple archives and databases around the world, official records of various international leprosy organizations, memoirs, and oral histories of Hansenites, and interviews with multiple historical actors, this book deftly reconstructs a social history of global efforts against leprosy after World War Two (WWII). It does so by examining the dynamics of various health organizations and philanthropic groups (chapters 1, 3, 5, 7, 9–11), the variation of actors, and the instability of leprosy-related medical knowledge (chapters 2, 4, 6 and 8), without losing sight of Hansenites’ perspectives and human rights (Introduction and chapter 12).
