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A Very Minor Prophet
James Bernard FrostJames Bernard Frost 9780983304982

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The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

ISBN13: 9781439170915
ISBN10: 1439170916
Condition: Standard
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The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave may have cut off her diseased breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.

Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

About the Author

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. His book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction. Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

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Average customer rating based on 10 comments:

: James Bond, January 19, 2012 (view all comments by James Bond)
A fascinating, very readable, and ultimately personal biography of a disease that seems to be idiosyncratic and different for every person who is affected by it. I was skeptical that such a book could be so fascinating but it was!
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: lindavw, January 9, 2012 (view all comments by lindavw)
This has to be the best non-fiction book of 2011. Mukherjee demonstrates what great writing can be: intriguing and personal, never dry and always accessible. As a medical researcher and physician, he has created a compelling and compassionate work that encompasses all we we have come to know about cancer, from its first discovery in Egypt to our modern day targeted gene therapies. He has included real stories of cancer patients (many of them his own patients) and the dedicated doctors and researchers who race to find the cause and cure of the deadly spectrum of cancer diseases. It is an inspiring work and I believe it will remain as good a read in ten or twenty years as it is today.
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: P Sweeney Tacoma, January 4, 2012 (view all comments by P Sweeney Tacoma)
Siddhartha Mukherjee has that rare combination of traits: empathy, compassion, deep medical knowledge, fine communication skills, and, most impressive, humility in the face of much that is still unknown about cancer, its treatment, and the psychology of patients. The latter is particularly important as he details case histories requiring a great amount of courage by patients enduring the treatments, which (as the patient has been warned) may at the very best only BUY TIME. He is far from objective in evaluating developments like the recourse to radical mastectomy which crippled so many women physically (and unnecessarily). When he sees light dawning on the horizon, his prose fairly gallops as he runs to embrace it!

As a cancer patient, this book helped me put my own situation in perspective.

Best of all, Emperor of All Maladies kept me riveted, like a good suspense novel. It's fine for reading in bed when the reader is fatigued by cancer treatment and yearning for conversation with an understanding friend.
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Product Details

ISBN:: 9781439170915
Author:: Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Publisher:: Scribner Book Company
Subject:: Civilization
Subject:: History
Subject:: Health and Medicine-Medical Specialties
Edition Description:: Trade paper
Publication Date:: 20110831
Binding:: TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:: General/trade
Language:: English
Pages:: 608
Dimensions:: 9.25 x 6.12 in

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