Mark Honigsbaum

Mark Honigsbaum is a medical historian and journalist with wide-ranging interests encompassing health, science, the media and contemporary culture. A regular contributor to The Guardian and The Lancet, he is the author of five books including Living With Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 (Macmillan, 2009) and The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris (New York and London: Norton; Hurst, 2019). A specialist in the history of pandemics and infectious disease, Honigsbaum's academic work combines insights from the medical and environmental humanities and the philosophy and sociology of science. His current research focuses on the phenomenon of "vaccine hesitancy" and its relationship to conspiracy theories. He is also developing a project on pandemic remembrance and the tension between narrative framings of Covid-19 as a "crisis" and collective experiences of grief and loss as enabled by digital technologies.