And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
If you want to be infuriated as fuck and saddened to your core, read this book. And the Band Played On shows how AIDS was able to spread unchecked for so many years during the early days of the epidemic. It highlights the stories of different people who died of AIDS as well as the doctors, researchers, and politicians working to combat the epidemic. While this book did make me sad to see the stories of so many different people who died of AIDS, this book mostly made me so incredibly angry.
The gay plague got covered only because it finally had struck people who counted, people who were not homosexuals. 1) This is an absolutely astounding piece of investigative journalism. Shilts has dug deep into the history of the AIDs crisis: from its very early origins in Africa, being passed around by a lack of medical hygiene, to the bath houses of New York and San Francisco. He has provided a comprehensive, horrific history of the disease, its victims, and the uncaring government who
My top 10 list of books consists of fiction - and this. I was in my 20's and came across this book at a garage sale. The title looks academic but there's nothing cold or dispassionate or removed about it. The author (small spoiler) died not long after he finished this and you can feel the race against time he must have experienced, as you read it. This story-of-a-disease is really about people. Health care practitioners, politicians, bureaucrats, epidemiologists, one famous Hollywood actor and a
This book took me a long time to read. I could only read small bits at a time. It was both informative and heartbreaking. And it made me think of friends I've lost. But other friends of mine actually lived through this time. It was a complete travesty how long it took this country to come to action against AIDS.
I didn't finish this. Reads like bad journalism. The story is, of course, tragic, but the various accounts ring false like the stories that actors tell. For example, we find: "On a hunch, Gottlieb twisted some arms to convince pathologists to take a small scraping of the patient's lung tissue through a nonsurgical maneuver." OK, so the author isn't a doctor, but 1. pathologists don't do endobronchial biopsies, pulmonologists do, 2.nobody has to twist a pulmonologists arm to do an endobronchial
Shilts writes at the end of And The Band Played On that the book is a work of journalism and that there has been no fictionalization, yet goes on to state that he reconstructs scenes and conversations, albeit based on interviews and other research. To me this process necessarily entails some degree of fictionalization, or at the very least, a departure from an 'objective' history of AIDS in Europe and America. Shilts can hardly be faulted for this given his professional and personal immersion in
Randy Shilts
Paperback | Pages: 656 pages Rating: 4.37 | 21892 Users | 1222 Reviews
Itemize Books As And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Original Title: | And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic |
ISBN: | 0312241356 (ISBN13: 9780312241353) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | Stonewall Book Award (1988), ASJA Outstanding Book Award (1988), California Book Award for Nonfiction (Silver) (1987), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (1987) |
Explanation To Books And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these questions, Shilts weaves the disparate threads into a coherent story, pinning down every evasion and contradiction at the highest levels of the medical, political, and media establishments.
Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly.
Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly.
Declare Epithetical Books And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Title | : | And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic |
Author | : | Randy Shilts |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 656 pages |
Published | : | April 9th 2000 by Stonewall Inn Editions (first published November 1st 1987) |
Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. LGBT. Science. Politics. Health. Medicine |
Rating Epithetical Books And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Ratings: 4.37 From 21892 Users | 1222 ReviewsCriticize Epithetical Books And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
This book has just about everything I like in a non-fiction. It's got science, medicine, high stakes, historical significance, and modern relevance. Trying to figure out why it wasn't more compelling to me, I had to focus on the 6th word in the title: Politics.This novel is about AIDS, but it's much more about people than about science. Shilts has a huge cast of characters, from French researchers to gay activists to scientists with the NIH and CDC. He tracks the disease from Fire IslandIf you want to be infuriated as fuck and saddened to your core, read this book. And the Band Played On shows how AIDS was able to spread unchecked for so many years during the early days of the epidemic. It highlights the stories of different people who died of AIDS as well as the doctors, researchers, and politicians working to combat the epidemic. While this book did make me sad to see the stories of so many different people who died of AIDS, this book mostly made me so incredibly angry.
The gay plague got covered only because it finally had struck people who counted, people who were not homosexuals. 1) This is an absolutely astounding piece of investigative journalism. Shilts has dug deep into the history of the AIDs crisis: from its very early origins in Africa, being passed around by a lack of medical hygiene, to the bath houses of New York and San Francisco. He has provided a comprehensive, horrific history of the disease, its victims, and the uncaring government who
My top 10 list of books consists of fiction - and this. I was in my 20's and came across this book at a garage sale. The title looks academic but there's nothing cold or dispassionate or removed about it. The author (small spoiler) died not long after he finished this and you can feel the race against time he must have experienced, as you read it. This story-of-a-disease is really about people. Health care practitioners, politicians, bureaucrats, epidemiologists, one famous Hollywood actor and a
This book took me a long time to read. I could only read small bits at a time. It was both informative and heartbreaking. And it made me think of friends I've lost. But other friends of mine actually lived through this time. It was a complete travesty how long it took this country to come to action against AIDS.
I didn't finish this. Reads like bad journalism. The story is, of course, tragic, but the various accounts ring false like the stories that actors tell. For example, we find: "On a hunch, Gottlieb twisted some arms to convince pathologists to take a small scraping of the patient's lung tissue through a nonsurgical maneuver." OK, so the author isn't a doctor, but 1. pathologists don't do endobronchial biopsies, pulmonologists do, 2.nobody has to twist a pulmonologists arm to do an endobronchial
Shilts writes at the end of And The Band Played On that the book is a work of journalism and that there has been no fictionalization, yet goes on to state that he reconstructs scenes and conversations, albeit based on interviews and other research. To me this process necessarily entails some degree of fictionalization, or at the very least, a departure from an 'objective' history of AIDS in Europe and America. Shilts can hardly be faulted for this given his professional and personal immersion in
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