Who is Edward Tenner?

    "I started as an historian and took a degree in European Social and Intellectual History at Princeton University. At the time I was not really terribly aware of new technology.

    Like many others I couldn't get a job in my specialty so I took a job in scientific publishing. At first I didn't think I was very well trained for this. But one of the things I learned from leaving academia was that you don't have to follow a series of prerequisites in order to do something. After working on a book with one of my teachers, I discovered that the history of science and technology is part of general history and I wanted to explore that some more. After working with another colleague on some papers on healthcare, I began to see some of the paradoxes that come with the improvement of treatment.

    I became more and more interested in paradox and especially the paradox that Europeans conquered the world not so much by the force of arms, but by disease they were carrying that for complex epidemiological reasons was devastating to the people they encountered.

    Today Edward Tenner holds a visiting research appointment in the Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University.