This chapter addresses challenges to the KWV system as the overall surplus spiralled in the 1980s and cooperatives began offloading cheap wine onto the market in minimalist packaging. Independent producers and the SFW became increasingly critical of the KWV’s performance of its regulatory functions. The chapter provides an account of Tim Hamilton-Russell’s dogged campaign for the right to produce wine in the Hemel-en-Aarde and to market it as he saw fit. It also addresses the vine-smuggling scandal that broke in 1986, which culminated in the loosening of quarantine controls. The chapter then details how the end of white rule led to government scrutiny of the KWV. After a bitter struggle over the demands of the KWV to hold onto its assets as it converted to a private company, a political deal was struck that enabled part of them be reycled in support of a black empowerment agenda in the industry. The residual control functions were taken over by a set of new bodies. The chapter closes with a brief account of the arrival of international drinks companies and the full merger between Distillers and SFW to create Distell, in an effort to ward off potentially hostile competition.

This chapter considers the potential psychological impact of the quarantines, lockdowns, and isolation that have affected almost every country in the world as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak. It describes the published literature on the short-term and long-term psychological impact of other (pre-2020) pandemic-related quarantines, identifies factors associated with this psychological impact pre-quarantine, during quarantine, and in the long term, discusses how this applies to the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggests how the psychological impact of quarantine and isolation might be reduced.

This chapter describes the approach of one mental health service to addressing the needs of inpatients who subsequently developed COVID-19. It describes the methods used to assess the needs of patients, including changes necessary to allow for their physical healthcare as well as their mental healthcare, and the difficulties encountered in ensuring an appropriate balance that protected patients and their healthcarers. The need for ongoing assessment and adaptation of responses and for consideration of long-term impacts is also discussed.

Stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic can threaten the ability to successfully maintain established romantic relationships as well as navigate the initiation and development of new relationships. Drawing on the vulnerability-stress-adaptation (VSA) model, we propose that the extent to which pandemic-related stress will undermine couples’ relationships, as well as the initiation of new relationships, will depend on the amount and severity of pandemic-related and preexisting levels of stress combined with enduring personal vulnerabilities such as attachment insecurity. We review a growing body of research examining relationship processes and functioning prior to and during the initial stages of the pandemic that provides evidence consistent with this framework and draws on related research suggesting routes to minimize relationship disruptions and promote resilience. In addition, we review newly emerging research examining how pandemic-related stress might impact the initiation of relationships. Finally, we discuss several directions for future research to facilitate an understanding of the longer-term implications of the pandemic for ongoing and newly developing romantic relationships.

As elsewhere in the global history of colonial health, public health and the control of infectious diseases turned Indigenous bodies and lands into sites where the state sought to assert greater control – and met significant resistance. This chapter considers these dynamics through a focus on vaccines, quarantines, and efforts to forcibly relocate sick northerners between 1900 and 1920. Particular attention is given to smallpox epidemics that spread widely and were a main vehicle for public health measures, but caused few deaths.

Chapter 4 explores reactions to the Provençal plague in Spain with a focus on the port city of Cádiz. It examines the centralization of disaster management during the reign of Philip V, as well as the 1720 plague’s long-term influence on Spain’s public health policy. What emerges in this chapter is an understanding of how Spanish authorities exploited the epidemic by ignoring the terms of treaties and tightening control over its borders, people, and commercial activities. Ultimately, they hoped to reap the advantages of excluding their primary competitors, France and Great Britain, from the hypercompetitive arena of Atlantic commerce. When official news of the plague in Marseilles reached Madrid, the Spanish Crown introduced regulations and supervisory committees that sought to extend the state’s control over commercial activities, both domestic and international, and that meant to exclude its greatest competitors from its commercial market. In the end, much of the new centralized system for disease prevention in Spain followed from reactions to the plague in Provence and remained into the following century, resulting in major changes in the management of both public health and customs inspections.

Chapter 2 explores reactions to the Plague of Provence in Italy with a focus on the port city of Genoa, considered by some to be “l’état le plus exposé,” or “the most exposed” to the threat of plague by its proximity to Marseilles. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to Genoa’s rich history of quarantine and public health. It then examines how a campaign of misinformation perpetuated by officials in Marseilles affected the reception of news about the plague outside of France. Claims that the disease was merely a malignant fever, or that the outbreak had ended (when it had not) caused confusion in the first months of the outbreak. Nevertheless, the inevitable truth that plague was in France began to arrive in cities across Europe via envoys, ambassadors, and especially via consuls, who reported back to their respective states from Provence. From there, word traveled rapidly as these accounts were copied in letters and printed in newspapers across Europe and the colonies, creating what I term an “invisible commonwealth” based in contemporary communication networks. The chapter then examines responses to the Provençal plague in Genoa and how they influenced, or were influenced by, Italian trade and diplomacy.

From 1720 to 1722, the French region of Provence and surrounding areas experienced one of the last major epidemics of plague to strike Western Europe. The Plague of Provence (or Great Plague of Marseilles) was a major disaster that left in its wake as many as 126,000 deaths, as well as new understandings about the nature of contagion and how best to manage its threat. Although the infection never left southeastern France, all of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and parts of Asia mobilized against its threat, and experienced its social, commercial, and diplomatic repercussions. Accordingly, this transnational study explores responses to this biological threat in some of the foremost port cities of the eighteenth-century world, including Marseilles, Genoa, London, Cádiz—the principal port for the Carrera de Indias or Route to the Indies – as well as some of the principal colonial towns with which these cities were most closely associated. In this way, this book reveals the ways in which a crisis in one part of the globe can yet transcend geographic and temporal boundaries to influence society, politics, and public health policy in regions far removed from the epicenter of disaster.

From 1720 to 1722, the French region of Provence and surrounding areas experienced one of the last major epidemics of plague to strike Western Europe. The Plague of Provence (or Great Plague of Marseilles) was a major disaster that left in its wake as many as 126,000 deaths, as well as new understandings about the nature of contagion and how best to manage its threat. Although the infection never left southeastern France, all of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and parts of Asia mobilized against its threat, and experienced its social, commercial, and diplomatic repercussions. Accordingly, this transnational study explores responses to this biological threat in some of the foremost port cities of the eighteenth-century world, including Marseilles, Genoa, London, Cádiz—the principal port for the Carrera de Indias or Route to the Indies – as well as some of the principal colonial towns with which these cities were most closely associated. In this way, this book reveals the ways in which a crisis in one part of the globe can yet transcend geographic and temporal boundaries to influence society, politics, and public health policy in regions far removed from the epicenter of disaster.

Chapter 3 looks at the port city of London, where the Plague of Provence caused waves of fear, opposition, and intellectual inquiry. Taking place against the backdrop of the recent South Sea Bubble, the epidemic became a major topic of discussion among politicians, journalists, scholars, physicians, grocers, and merchants as they protested perceived infringements on their civil liberties, or debated the nature of contagion and the usefulness of quarantine. In 1720, just as plague cases emerged in the south of France, the bursting of the South Sea Bubble unleashed a wave of anxiety and suspicion. Passionate attacks against the perceived injustices of the Crown as it attempted to enact quarantines and impede illicit commerce were filled with accusations that government authorities and “South Sea scheme men” meant to take away the inviolable rights of the people under the pretext of a foreign plague. Meanwhile, debates between contagionists and anti-contagionists about the transmission of infectious disease also erupted with special force in the wake of the 1720 plague. This chapter explores these reactions within the larger historical context of early-eighteenth-century politics and diplomacy and considers the various factors that came into play as England designed its new public health policy.