Shows how narratives of contagion structure communities of belonging and how the lessons of these narratives are incorporated into sociological theories of cultural transmission and community formation.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Imagined Immunities: The Epidemiology of Belonging 29
2. The Healthy Carrier: "Typhoid Mary" and Social Being 68
3. Communicable Americanism: Social Contagion and Urban Spaces 114
4. Viral Cultures: Microbes and Politics in the Cold War 157
5. "The Columbus of AIDS": The Invention of "Patient Zero" 213
Epilogue 264
Notes 271
Works Cited 323
Index 353