Scrolls & Leaves: World History Podcast

Scrolls & Leaves: World History Podcast


Pandemics and Borders

August 24, 2020

We are policing ourselves and our neighbors these days… our governments are certainly tracking us! States are closing national borders. We stay at home waiting for permission to leave.
We mull over the loss of civil liberties under the guise of the pandemic. And to understand these responses, we learn about a devastating pandemic from the 1800s.
In 1817, cholera broke out in Bengal and became a pandemic. Millions died. Europeans were ruling most of Asia, and they imposed restrictions on movement that’ve persisted to this day.