Book Review: S.A. Meegama. 2012. Famine, Fevers and Fear: The State and Disease in British Colonial Sri Lanka
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797014551271 |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Author | Saman Kelegama |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
350 Book Reviews
Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 1, 3 (2014): 347–357
international treaties involving nations in the South China Sea region, and key
maps make this an ideal reference text for interested observers, undergraduate
students and academics alike.
Benjamin Alexander Hale
Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
E-mail: bhale@our.ecu.edu.au
S.A. Meegama. 2012. Famine, Fevers and Fear: The State and Disease
in British Colonial Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Sridevi Publication.
460 pp. ISBN: 978-9-5554-0480-8
DOI: 10.1177/2347797014551271
This book explores some aspects of the roots of modern Sri Lanka through the
social history of health during the period when it was a British colony. The author
charts out the impact of colonial policies on peasant agriculture, food availability
and the living conditions of the common people. Bringing together rarely docu-
mented facts, backed by data from surveys, government reports and entries in
diaries of officials, the author writes of the devastation wrought by famine, new
diseases and volatile epidemics, and the consequent fear generated among the
subject peoples.
The work details, with particular reference to the politics of health in a colonial
context, the gradual modification of Eurocentric and imperial attitudes among the
governing elite under pressure from enlightened officials, medical men and popu-
lar leaders. The author traces the evolution of the health transition detailing the
campaigns against many diseases, the efforts to develop preventive health care by
providing sanitation and safe drinking water, the provision of primary health care
to restore the appallingly high levels of maternal, infant and child mortality and
the uphill battle to improve the abysmal living conditions of immigrant workers
in the plantations.
This book also analyzes the impact of the malaria epidemic and famine of the
1934–1935 period on the social policies of governments elected by the people’s
vote after the grant of universal suffrage in 1931. The author comments on the
gradual opening of a road to a more egalitarian society through multiple state
interventions in health, education and food security that also made the expectation
of life and health care in this Third World country nearer to the levels attained by
developed countries.
The author S. Ananda Meegama has worked on the subject of mortality and
disease in developing countries for several decades. This book contains his know-
ledge and experience gathered during his versatile career and is essentially a con-
tinuation of the work on mortality trends in Sri Lanka that he submitted many
decades ago for his doctoral thesis at the London School of Economics.
To continue reading
Request your trial