Discover this podcast and so much more

Podcasts are free to enjoy without a subscription. We also offer ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more for just $11.99/month.

UnavailableTamara Venit-Shelton, "Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace" (Yale UP, 2019)
Currently unavailable

Tamara Venit-Shelton, "Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace" (Yale UP, 2019)

FromNew Books in History


Currently unavailable

Tamara Venit-Shelton, "Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace" (Yale UP, 2019)

FromNew Books in History

ratings:
Length:
73 minutes
Released:
Jun 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

The modern popularity of acupuncture and herbal medicine belies the long history of Chinese medicine in the U.S. In Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace (Yale University Press, 2019), Tamara Venit-Shelton (Claremont McKenna College) examines the historical contexts that shaped perceptions of traditional Chinese medicine from the colonial period to the present. Venit-Shelton draws from court records, material culture, census records, oral interviews, and newspapers to uncover the multi-faceted roles that Chinese herbalists played in both Chinese and non-Chinese communities during the “long Progressive Era.”
Through self-Orientalizing presentations, these health practitioners enterprisingly navigated, accommodated, and resisted waves of rising xenophobia and medical regulation. After a period of struggle between the 1930s and 1970s when depression and war disrupted supply chains, Chinese medicine made a roaring comeback even as increasing numbers of Chinese Americans trained in Western medicine, leading to the rise of integrative medicine. Herbs and Roots deepens our understanding of histories of medicine and public health, American Orientalism, Asian immigration to the US, and the environment and ideas of nature.
Ian Shin is assistant professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Released:
Jun 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Interviews with Historians about their New Books