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Author: Jonathan Engel
ISBN : B000VYX8TA
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Format: PDF, EPUB
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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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Free Download The Epidemic: A History of Aids [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 421 KB
- Print Length: 400 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; 1 edition (October 13, 2009)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000VYX8TA
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,001 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > AIDS
- #25
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > AIDS
Free Download The Epidemic: A History of Aids
I read The Epidemic hoping to find new, useful information to use in updating my own 1999 AIDS history, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America (University of Chicago Press). I have to admit I was skeptical that any book could capture the global breadth of the HIV pandemic, and The Epidemic proved my skepticism well-founded. Not only does it skim along the surface of important, even profound, events, but the book is written in language that leaves the impression the author has not learned anything from what the pandemic has taught about the vital importance of language. I was surprised to learn the author holds a PhD in the history of medicine from Yale.
Here is what I mean: Throughout the book the terms HIV and AIDS are used interchangeably; they are not interchangeable. As it has been used since HIV testing became available, in 1985, AIDS refers to the advanced stage of HIV disease (the preferred term for the spectrum of HIV-related infection and illness) at which the virus has seriously damaged the immune system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers a CD4 T-cell count below 200, a CD4 T-cell percentage below 14 percent, or the presence of an opportunistic infection in someone who has HIV to be what "defines" AIDS. A person cannot "catch" AIDS, though an HIV-positive person can progress to AIDS if his/her HIV infection is not managed with antiretroviral therapy. Throughout The Epidemic, the author refers to people "catching," being "infected with" or "spreading" AIDS. This is inaccurate, misleading and even a bit histrionic.
Other examples of poor language choice (and sloppy writing): "the gay community has been uniquely vulnerable to the virus.