The Emperor of All Maladies

A Biography of Cancer

Hardcover

English language

Published Dec. 22, 2011 by Fourth Estate.

ISBN:
978-0-00-725091-2
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OCLC Number:
644528689

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5 stars (4 reviews)

In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee, doctor, researcher and award-winning science writer, 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, arrogance and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out ‘war against cancer’. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories and deaths, told through the eyes of predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteeth-century recipient of primitive radiation and chemotherapy and Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, …

20 editions

Fascinating, moving explanation of where we were and are now in the battle against cancer.

No rating

Fascinating history of the battle against cancer, vividly describing not just the mysteries of cancer and their gradual unraveling, but also the politics and people involved. There's plenty of ego and professional rivalry involved, with people holding onto wrong ideas and going down wrong tracks, but they're still the heroes compared to the obvious villains (tobacco industry, how are they still in business?) and sometime hero/villains (big pharma - heroes when they fund the research and bring it to market, villains when they, eh, not enough cancer customers). The author is a cancer physician and this book channels his professional and emotional investment in the topic, but cancer affects all of us, so while there are way too many "must read" books, I consider this one of them.

Review of 'The Emperor of All Maladies' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I very much enjoyed reading this book as it was informative both on the level of science and the pain that cancer patients go through. I appreciated the pains the author took to track down the historical details of cancer treatment. I also liked that he does not lose sight of human suffering and hope when talking about exciting developments in science.

I can talk about minor issues with the book, like how some sections are too US-centric, and how sometimes the author tries a bit too hard to spice up the descriptions of the science and scientist. But none of the above reduces the value of the book, so I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

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5 stars