ShelfLife@Texas

Microsoft founder Bill Gates praised Distinguished Teaching Professor of History David Oshinsky’s book “Polio: An American Story” (Oxford University Press, 2005) during a speech titled “Why We are Impatient Optimists” last month in Wash. D.C.

Highlighting Oshinsky’s historical account of the polio epidemic in America, Gates addressed the need for improvements in global health care and medical technologies. Watch the video segment.

Learn more about Oshinsky’s book in the feature “More Than a March of Dimes.”

Tune in to your local PBS station next Monday for an in-depth look at one of the biggest public health crises of the 20th century.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will air “The Polio Crusade,” a one-hour television documentary based in part on History Professor David Oshinsky’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, at 8 p.m. (CST) Feb. 2.

Oshinsky won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in history for “Polio: An American Story” (Oxford University Press, 2005) which details America’s obsession with the disease.

“The Polio Crusade,” produced
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