In an impressively engaging volume that connects the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa with the even more immediate context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Farmer offers some critical lessons that can elucidate not only how we arrived at our current state but also how we might chart a path forward. At its core, Feuds, Fevers, and Diamonds is about the tension between disease control and patient care, and the dangers that can emerge when patients are sacrificed to prevent the spread of an epidemic. The book’s epilogue opens with a reference to the plea for “decency” by Dr. Rieux in Albert Camus’ La Peste (Paris, 1947). “Decency” for Farmer (and for Rieux) is the commitment to care alongside containment.
Equally central to this book is the contention that history has much to teach about the present. Most traditional students would hardly consider a pandemic that exploded in the 2010s as...