Malaria is resurgent, most tragically in Asia where the battle had seemed almost won. In India, malaria cases, which were reduced to 50,000 in 1961, soared in 1977 to 30 million or more. Classically one of the greatest if least spectacular of the killers, malaria may become that once more. What happened and why are the subject of this history, which begins with the discoveries that precipitated hostilities and traces the ups and downs of the battles that followed. - p. 1.