The process of maritime quarantine involves the detention of ships and all their contents, including passengers thought to be infected with certain infectious diseases, for specified periods prior to disembarkation. Given the importance of seafaring to trade and travel during the early modern and modern period, it is hardly surprising that the British found this a particularly difficult system to accept, not least because it relied on autocratic measures of control that also conflicted with notions of free trade and democracy. It has equally been a system that historians have found very difficult to deal with, mainly because the subject is “too diverse” (xiv), to quote the author of this work alone. Though quarantine may have become a defense of last resort, this is its first, and certainly not last, serious academic study.

Booker has produced “a history of maritime quarantine as it affected Great Britain, Ireland, and British possessions in the Mediterranean until 1896” (xiii). Each of the fifteen hefty chapters covers periods varying from four to 175 years in duration and addresses certain places and regions, such as the Baltic, Malta, and Gibraltar, as well as specific themes, including lazarettos, the creation of a British Board of Health and anticontagionism. In general, the volume is organized chronologically and chapters on average span twenty years of history, though often much longer periods. They also address diseases, such as cholera and yellow fever, though plague remained the main concern of those who debated quarantine for the majority of the period covered by this study.

While the diseases of quarantine changed over the 250 years covered by Booker, so too did their management, cost, the means of disinfection, as well as the official list of suspect goods and places. This story starts with the stoppage of linen shipments from France in the seventeenth century and details the progressive increase in quarantine harbors throughout Britain alongside the evolution of its quarantine policy, which was at variance with that of the continent for much of the period until its demise in 1896. In the process, Booker does not appear to neglect a single episode in the subject's turbulent history. In general, quarantine was always short-lived and subject to the royal prerogative. Senior politicians seriously addressed the issue only in 1757. It had always been recognized as a powerful political weapon, used more often to punish unpopular nations than protect vulnerable citizens. Historically, cloth was regarded the most dangerous transmitter of disease regardless of country. In Scotland, on the other hand, quarantine was a matter for local government and was strictly enforced at numerous small ports. Nevertheless, the enforcement of quarantine was invariably characterized by threat but remained largely ineffective, many captains and merchants evading delay. Occasionally, those in charge of its enforcement, such as Sir Thomas Maitland, governor of Malta, famously flouted their own strict rules.

Booker has a particularly good knowledge of his sources, especially for the eighteenth century. He recognizes both their strengths and weaknesses, noting, among other things, potential clerical errors of past centuries that can potentially complicate current historical work. However, while strong on the primary evidence, he appears less knowledgeable when it comes to secondary sources. In fact, there are far more primary sources than secondary sources recorded in the book's footnotes and bibliography. This is especially noticeable for the nineteenth-century context, which relies almost entirely on W. M. Frazer's History of English Public Health (London, 1950). Booker neglects almost every major work on the history of public health written in the last half century.

To some, this might not be considered a serious oversight given the diverse range of topics upon which the subject of quarantine touches. However, the book is part of the History of Medicine in Context series and should have engaged critically with much more work by public health historians. While it does contain a chapter on anticontagionism, Booker never really gets to the heart of this and other public health debates. The rich topic of lazarettos is addressed, but rarely as medical institutions, and the author makes surprisingly little use of John Howard's late eighteenth-century study of their administration. Even worse, a section on cholera in Sunderland does not even mention R. J. Morris's classic study (1976) of the local outbreak.

Nevertheless, Booker does recognize that the story of quarantine demands more than the medical context. In fact, for most of this period, it was regarded a matter for regulatory officers, not physicians. As a result, there is much here to interest economic, social, political, military, and maritime historians. While the book would have benefited from a proper introduction and conclusion, its thorough index will allow scholars to locate the details that are relevant to their own research. The appendix also contains much useful information, though it is hidden in the pages that follow the bibliography. Introductions and summaries to chapters could also have been more thorough and thereby helped draw out the main themes of each section. As a result of this, not to mention the author's near total reliance on primary sources, the book often reads much like the minute books from which the information was meticulously drawn. Nowhere is this as noticeable as when Booker outlines the menu offered to inmates of a Maltese lazaretto in 1838 (524). Though the kitchen staff at the lazaretto's trattoria certainly ensured inmates were well fed, this study will leave many historians hungry for more. Nevertheless, the subject of maritime history has been thoroughly unpacked by Booker, and his findings should find their way into numerous relevant historical fields.