The pandemic perhaps dramatic events in a public culture of danger carlo caduff berkeley university of california press 2015 254 pp singer 2016 medical anthropology quarterly wiley online library journals. When the current threat and fear linked with the expansion of zika virus becomes more widespread carlo caduffs book the pandemics perhaps dramatic events in a public culture of danger will likely acquire an even stronger sense of relevance as the introduction of the book explains experts and officials predicted in 2005 that a deadly influenza pandemic could storm the usa these predictions made by experts working in the fields of epidemiology public health and microbiology led the . The pandemic perhaps explores how american experts framed a catastrophe that never occurred the urgent threat that was presented to the public produced a profound sense of insecurity prompting a systematic effort to prepare the population for the coming plague but when that plague did not arrive the race to avert it carried on paradoxically it was the absence of disease that made preparedness a permanent project the pandemic perhaps tells the story of what happened when nothing really . The pandemic perhapstells the story of what happened when nothing really happened drawing on fieldwork among scientists and public health professionals in new york city the book is an investigation of how actors and institutions produced a scene of extreme expectation through the circulation of dramatic plague visions it argues that experts deployed these visions to draw attention to the possibility of a pandemic frame the disease as a catastrophic event and make it meaningful to the . The pandemic perhaps dramatic events in a public culture of danger carlo caduff berkeley university of california press 2015 254 pp