Simon Schama in Conversation with Adam Gopnik

In his gripping books and TV series, The Story of the Jews, Simon Schama brought to life centuries of Jewish philosophers and rabbis, spice dealers and market women, rulers and rabble-rousers with his trademark grace and eloquence. Now he has repeated that feat, turning his sharp eye, meticulous research and evocative writing to a different — and timely — bit of history: the repeated human crises of pandemics.

To limn this tale of how politics and culture overwhelm science when humans are faced with calamitous pandemics, Schama ranges across time and space to introduce an extraordinary cast of characters, including a vaccinating doctor making house calls in Halifax; a philosopher-playwright burning with fever during a smallpox outbreak in London; and a gun-toting Jewish student from Odessa, barred from a professorship in his country because of his religion, who went on to develop a vaccine that saved millions from the bubonic plague and cholera.

Upon the release of Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations, a gripping tale of terror, suffering and hope that feels all too familiar in the wake of COVID-19, Dr. Schama is joined in conversation with The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik about how fighting disease has long become trapped in nonscientific tangles, the human cost of centuries of missteps and the devastating effect geopolitics still have on global health.

After stints at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard, Dr. Simon Schama joined the faculty at Columbia University as Professor of Art History and History. The author of 19 award-winning books, he is also a cultural essayist for The New Yorker and writer/presenter of more than 60 documentaries for PBS and the BBC.

In addition to writing stories and essays for The New Yorker for almost 40 years, Adam Gopnik has authored nine books, including The New York Times bestseller Paris to the Moon, and his most recent book, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery.