The Epidemic: A History of Aids
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
From the Castro bathhouses to AZT and the denial of AIDS in South Africa, this sweeping look at AIDS covers the epidemic from all angles and across the world. Engel seamlessly weaves together science, politics, and culture, writing with an even hand—noting the excesses of the more radical edges of the ACT UP movement as well as the conservative religious leaders who thought AIDS victims deserved what they got.
The story of AIDS is one of the most compelling human dramas of our time, both in its profound tragedy and in the extraordinary scientific efforts impelled on its behalf. For gay Americans, it has been the story of the past generation, redefining the community and the community's sexuality. For the Third World, AIDS has created endless devastation, toppling economies, social structures, and whole villages and regions. And the worst may yet be to come: AIDS is expanding quickly into India, Russia, China, and elsewhere, while still raging insub-Saharan Africa.
A distinguished medical historian, Engel lets his characters speak for themselves. Whether gay activists, government officials, public health professionals, scientists, or frightened parents of schoolchildren, they responded as best they could to tragic happenstance that emerged seemingly from nowhere. There is much drama here, and human weakness and heroism too. Writing with vivid immediacy, Engel allows us to relive the short but tumultuous history of a modern scourge.
Related to The Epidemic
Related ebooks
AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, Updated with a New Preface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Modern Plagues: and How We Are Causing Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catching Breath: The Making and Unmaking of Tuberculosis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Atlas of Disease: Mapping Deadly Epidemics and Contagion from the Plague to the Coronavirus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Infectious: A Doctor's Eye-Opening Insights into Contagious Diseases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pox: The Life and Near Death of a Very Social Disease Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Plague on All Our Houses: Medical Intrigue, Hollywood, and the Discovery of AIDS Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5AIDS in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Silence: A History of AIDS through Its Images Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomeone Was Here: Profiles in the AIDS Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Epidemic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of St. Vincent's Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Linked by Blood: Hemophilia and AIDS Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outbreak!: 50 Tales of Epidemics that Terrorized the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Modern History For You
The Devil's Notebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Christianity: Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Little Red Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Mother, a Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night to Remember: The Sinking of the Titanic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Titanic Chronicles: A Night to Remember and The Night Lives On Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What Every Person Should Know About War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Profiles in Courage: Deluxe Modern Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All But My Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Epidemic
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Engel is thorough, journalistic, and documents everything he says thoroughly. This is both the strength and the weakness of the book. Facts are delivered relentlessly. Unless one is already a student of this global crisis, one will unquestionably learn a great deal. Hardly a paragraph goes by without statistics being delivered, and one will be astonished when the book ends approximately 2/3 of the way through the volume, but the entire last third of the book is end notes. However, the delivery is so dry and unemotional, that I didn't feel as in touch with the victims, the health care workers, the scientists, or anyone else as I would have liked. They were all primarily reduced to numbers. Those numbers could be quite shocking, revealing, and upsetting. But I would have liked the chapters to be broken up with a few personal stories, to give a human dimension to a very human drama.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is one compelling book about the history of AIDS. In conversational and fast-paced language, Engel is systematic about the historical facts and offers a neutral approach to the progress of research on AIDS. Great book for the non-scientific reader.