Winner, 2025 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award Across American history, the question of whose lives are long and healthy and whose lives are short and sick has always been shaped by the social and economic order. From the dispossession of Indigenous people and the horrors of slavery to infectious diseases spreading in overcrowded tenements and the vast environmental contamination caused by industrialization, and through climate change and pandemics in the twenty-first century, those in power have left others behind. Through the lens of death and disease, Building the Worlds That Kill Us provides a new way of understanding the history of the United States from the colonial era to the present. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz demonstrate that the changing rates and kinds of illnesses reflect social, political, and economic structures and inequalities of race, class, and gender. These deep inequities determine the disparate health experiences of rich and poor, Black and white, men and women, immigrant and native-born, boss and worker, Indigenous and settler. This book underscores that powerful people and institutions have always seen some lives as more valuable than others, and it emphasizes how those who have been most affected by the disparities in rates of disease and death have challenged and changed these systems. Ultimately, this history shows that unequal outcomes are a choice―and we can instead collectively make decisions that foster life and health. "Named one of the best books of 2024." ― Smithsonian Magazine "The authors are great storytellers, and they begin with the early days of the nation and take us through the elements and decisions wedded to medicine’s efficacy: the physicians and thinkers, industry and commerce, and, most strikingly, the maze of profit and politics that has led to the health care inequities and inefficiencies of today." -- Katherine Ott, curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the National Museum of American History ― Smithsonian Magazine "This book is crucial reading for anyone who wishes to understand the curious failure of the USA to deliver health in return for the trillions of dollars it spends." -- Mary T Bassett, Harvard University ― The Lancet "This hard-hitting exposé will change how readers think about the nature of disease." ― Publishers Weekly "An important, expert chronicle of disease and health disparities in America that urges us to repair already existing sickness-beset communities and create a better society that ensures a safe place for all people to thrive." ― Booklist "In this remarkable book, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz examine the entire course of American history to demonstrate the inequalities that have always been built into Americans' experience of health and disease, death and dying. With economic inequality at record levels today, Building the Worlds That Kill Us explains why the health experiences of different groups of Americans differ so widely and what this tells us about our society and its history." -- Eric Foner, author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution "This important book spotlights the inequity of big industries imposing their harms on the general public (often protected by allies bought with political spending) and the further inequity of where those harms tend to fall." -- U. S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse "In this sweeping tour de force, Rosner and Markowitz reveal that from the first colonial encounters to the global climate crisis, societies have chosen to allow some to prosper and others to languish. This long history, summarizing two lifetimes of scholarship, shows how social inequality is inextricably linked to life and death decisions made in policy, in institutions, and in the service of unbridled profit. This important book should be widely read and is an invaluable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the public." -- Alondra Nelson, Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab, Institute for Advanced Study "An eagerly anticipated global history of environment and health, penned by two esteemed historians of public health." -- Alfredo Morabia, editor in chief of the American Journal of Public Health "This book shows why public health needs to learn history. Beginning with the European settlement of what became the United States, it addresses the seizure of indigenous lands, the adoption of a labor system that relied on enslaved workers, and nineteenth-century industrialization, continuing up to the present day. The authors ask the larger question of what accounts for exploitative working conditions and environmental degradation. The answer lies in how the particularly predatory form of capitalism in the United States can win out over healthful lives. History also offers hope. The call to protect health can be unifying, and social arrangements can be changed." -- Mary Travis Bassett, Harvard University "In Buil