Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine | Geoff Manaugh & Nicola Twilley | Macmillan Publishers

What does it mean to be isolated in the name of safety — and who gets to decide when the danger has passed?

Until Proven Safe is a compelling, wide-ranging, and brilliantly reported investigation into quarantine — our most powerful and enduring response to uncertainty. Written by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley and published by Macmillan Publishers, this landmark work of narrative non-fiction traces the history, present, and future of quarantine across biological, political, and technological landscapes — revealing a practice that has shaped human society in ways both profound and deeply unsettling.

From medieval lazarettos on the Adriatic coast to the remote facilities where returning astronauts were once isolated, from the architecture of modern pandemic preparedness to the surveillance technologies now redefining what quarantine means in a connected world, Until Proven Safe ventures far beyond medicine to explore quarantine in its fullest dimensions — as a system of control, a tool of governance, and a mirror held up to our most fundamental questions about risk, freedom, and collective responsibility.

Key Themes

• The history of quarantine — a rich and vivid account of quarantine’s origins and evolution, from medieval lazarettos and plague-era isolation practices to the modern infrastructure of pandemic preparedness and global disease surveillance
• Quarantine as a system of control — a searching examination of how quarantine operates not just as a public health measure, but as a system of assumed guilt and social control — and the tensions this creates between individual freedom and collective safety
• Beyond medicine — quarantine explored in unexpected domains: nuclear waste management, agricultural plant disease, and planetary protection — revealing how the logic of isolation pervades far more of modern life than we realise
• Surveillance and emerging technologies — how digital surveillance, data tracking, and emerging technologies are transforming quarantine in the 21st century — and what this means for privacy, governance, and civil liberties
• Freedom, risk, and collective responsibility — the enduring tension at the heart of quarantine — between individual rights and the demands of the collective, between personal risk and shared safety

Who This Book Is For

Until Proven Safe is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complex systems that govern modern life, crisis response, and public health — as well as readers interested in history, architecture, science, politics, and the forces that shape how we live together. Timely, thought-provoking, and beautifully written.

Authors: Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
Format: Hardback
Genre: Narrative Non-Fiction / History / Public Health / Science
ISBN: 9781509867400