ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comparative historical analysis of containment measures in one African colonial context, Zimbabwe, and a rural western setting, the Upper Midwest of the USA during the 1918 influenza pandemic. While it argues that diverse factors (economic, racial, logistic) shaped the imposition of and responses to these measures, it also shows how authorities offered epidemiological certainty in the face of contradictory medical understandings and popular fears. A pandemic is a singular event, the convergence of specific virological, political, social, economic and ecological networks. The complex interactions between pathogens, people and their environments are historically specific. The point of pandemic histories is not to evaluate the success or failure of a particular intervention, but rather to identify the multiple complexities that inhere in every juncture of decision making, implementation, public response and outcome of containment measures. Our two case studies illustrate the pragmatic value, function and limits of certainty.
