From 1973 to 1975, James McCann worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bure, a small farming village in the highlands of northwestern Ethiopia. At the time, malaria was ravaging much of the country, killing thousands. But Bure was more than three miles above sea level, and villagers believed its chilly air and high altitude kept mosquitoes at bay.
When McCann, now a College of Arts & Sciences professor of history, returned to Bure 20 years later, he found a village devastated by malaria. Shocked and deeply troubled by the tragedy, McCann set out to determine why an area with no history of malaria had suddenly become a hot spot for the disease.
