14Science and Medicine.

This article reviews recent scholarship in the history of science and medicine that challenges conventional narratives by emphasizing the social, cultural, and political dimensions of biomedical practices. It highlights four key studies: Cindy Ermus's monograph on the 1720 Plague of Provence, which reframes a regional epidemic as a transnational event that catalyzed centralized disaster management across Europe and colonies; Jeannie N. Shinozuka's analysis linking transpacific biological invasions to anti-Asian racism and exclusionary policies in twentieth-century America; Diego Armus and Pablo F. Gómez's edited collection documenting the persistence and complexity of traditional and Indigenous healing practices in Latin America amid colonial and modern pressures; and Sandra Eder's examination of the clinical origins of the sex/gender binary in mid-twentieth-century medical practice, showing how gender was constructed and enforced through medical interventions. Together, these works illustrate how historical biomedical categories and practices are contingent, contested, and deeply intertwined with broader social and political forces.