Sheilagh-ogilvie
Sheilagh Ogilvie

Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid

Sheilagh Ogilvie

Thursday, 3 April 2025

10:00am

1 hour

Department for Continuing Education: Lecture Theatre

£8 - £15

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Economic historian Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie looks at seven centuries of pandemics and explains how human institutions such as markets, states, communities, religions, guilds and families have helped to both control them and exacerbate them.

Ogilvie says that infectious diseases, from the Black Death to Covid-19, have killed more people than famine or war throughout history. Our efforts in countering them are much more successful today, but we are using many of the same processes as our ancestors. Ogilvie explains how human societies co-ordinated and innovated in response to infections long before the science of medicine was established. And she shows how human institutions react to pandemics and how they have weaknesses that can make them worse.

Ogilvie is the Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Centre for Economic and Social History. Her books include The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis and A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany.

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The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Cultural Relations Platform Supporter of the festival's Voices of Europe programme Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Pusey House Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine