Connecting three worlds: socialism, medicine and global health after WWII

Until recently, the history of global health has been written mainly through the lens of American, colonial and liberal perspectives, without acknowledging the contributions of the socialist world. Though those histories have provided insightful accounts of the forces and processes of health care internationalization, they have also distorted our understanding of how global health came to be produced during the 20th century. Particularly during the Cold War period, different framings of socialist medicine played major roles in shaping and contesting global practices, and our aim is to bring them to the fore. Through case studies located in different regions of the world (Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America), we aim to integrate missing expert networks, political agendas, public health models and diplomatic agreements in global health history. This work, in turn, allows us to rethink concepts such as socialism, solidarity, development, socialist medical research and health provision.