Causes and implications of forgetfulness in the history of pandemics: the case of the 1918-1920 influenza in Latin America

Abstract

The result of a seminar that began meeting during the COVID-19 quarantine, The Pandemic of Forgetfulness. Studies on the Impact of Influenza in Latin America, 1918–1920 was the first product of joint research of what is now called the Permanent Seminar on Historical and Social Studies of Endemics and Epidemics in Ibero-America (SPEHSEEI).

The book, consisting of 355 pages, includes an introduction and ten chapters on the 1918–1919 influenza or flu pandemic, each focusing on a country in Latin America: seven analyze the pandemic at the national level—Argentina (Adrián Carbonetti, María Alejandra Fantín and María Laura Rodríguez), Brazil (Liane Maria Bertucci and Anny Jackeline Torres Silveira), Chile (Alexandrine de La Taille-Trétinville U), Costa Rica (Ana María Botey Sobrado), Honduras (Yesenia Martínez), Mexico (Lourdes Márquez Morfín and América Molina del Villar) and Venezuela (Rogelio Altez); two examine the pandemic in a capital city—La Paz, Bolivia (Nigel Caspa) and Guatemala City (Luis Alberto Arrioja Díaz Viruell); and one focuses on a region—Bocayá, in the Colombian Andes (Abel Fernando Martínez Martín, Bernardo Francisco Andrés Meléndez Álvarez, Edwar Javier Manrique Corredor and Omar Fernando Robayo Avendaño).