This book traces the origins of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the broader context of universalism since the beginning of the 20th century.

UHC aims to improve access to essential health services, provide financial protection and overcome health care inequities.

Drawing on rich first-hand data, including expert interviews and archival research, this book adopts a historical–sociological methodology to analyse some of UHC's key political dynamics: consensus, conflicts, negotiations and struggles. It reveals that UHC is the result of a unique conjoining of movements in health, debates on human rights and concerns with development in a particular world context across the Global North and Global South.