COVID-19: Volume I: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the associated COVID-19 pandemic, is perhaps  the greatest threat to life, and lifestyles, the world has known in more  than a century. The scholarship included here provides critical  insights into the ethics and ideologies, inequalities, and changed  social understandings that lie at the heart of this pandemic. This  volume maps out the ways in which the pandemic has impacted (most often  disproportionately) societies, the successes and failures of means used  to combat the virus, and the considerations and future possibilities –  both positive and negative – that lie ahead. While the pandemic has  brought humanity together in some noteworthy ways, it has also laid bare  many of the systemic inequalities that lie at the foundation of our  global society. This volume is a significant step toward better  understanding these impacts.

The work presented here represents a  remarkable diversity and quality of impassioned scholarship and is a  timely and critical advance in knowledge related to the pandemic. This  volume and its companion, COVID-19: Volume II: Social Consequences and  Cultural Adaptations, are the result of the collaboration of more  than 50 of the leading social scientists from across five continents.  The breadth and depth of the scholarship is matched only by the  intellectual and global scope of the contributors themselves. The  insights presented here have much to offer not just to an understanding  of the ongoing world of COVID-19, but also to helping us (re-) build,  and better shape, the world beyond.