"Pox is a scholarly rarity: an important and deeply-researched book that speaks not only to historians, but to any thoughtful reader. Michael Willrich has rescued and elegantly re-created a neglected episode in American history. In clear yet nuanced prose, he has made a lasting contribution to our understanding of the complex and tangled relationship between the powers and responsibilities of the state and the autonomy of individual men and women."--(Charles Rosenberg, author of The Cholera Years)

"In one of American history's ironies, a nation fiercely supportive of individual liberty also developed a public health movement that may have become the most violently invasive of individual rights in the world. These tendencies collided at the turn of the 20th century, when a smallpox epidemic spread through much of the country. Michael Willrich tells the story of Americans who fought for liberty from vaccination while others were vaccinated by brutal force at the hands of New York Police, Texas Rangers, and even the U.S. Cavalry. A torrent of litigation followed, some of it carefully balanced, much of it very unwise, and it still reverberates in American jurisprudence. These were hard cases, but in the highly skilled hands of Michael Willrich, hard cases make great history. We all have much to learn from this excellent book."--(David Hackett Fischer, author of Champlain's Dream and Washington's Crossing)

"Michael Willrich has written a fascinating, fast-paced story of America's last major smallpox epidemic. Pox is a tale of race, class, violence, political resistance, intergovernmental conflict, and, most importantly, the age-old tension between individual rights and government regulation for the common good. Writing with passion and verve, Willrich weaves riveting anecdotes and vivid portraits of previously unknown players into a compelling historical narrative with resonance for today's debate over the constitutionality of federal health care reform. This is history at its best written by a master of his craft."--(Michael J. Klarman, author of From Jim Crow to Civil Rights)

"In Pox, Michael Willrich melds meticulous research with elegant writing to create a richly-textured social history about a horrible disease at the charged intersection of science, politics, race, and culture. Willrich deftly traces the great clashes between government epidemiologists and civil libertarians at an uneasy time when a burgeoning American Empire was field-testing the public consequences of germ theory. After reading Pox, you'll never think the same way again about the now all-but-mechanical ritual of rolling up your shirtsleeve for a vaccine needle."--(Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail)