Book Description
Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.
Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering.
Customer Reviews:
Health and survival as human rights.......2007-05-30
Paul Farmer, perhaps the most famous 'Third World doctor' living today, has written an eloquent and moving plea for a reconsideration of modern approaches toward healthcare in the developing nations in this book, "Pathologies of Power". Based on his personal experiences of care in Haiti, but also his professional visits to Russia, Africa, Central America, Mexico, Cuba and many other places besides, Paul Farmer demonstrates that the problematics of healthcare and those of poverty and inequality are insolubly linked in these nations. Whoever says "heal the sick" must also say "end poverty", for the one is not possible without the other; and whoever says "prevent disease" must also say "destroy socio-economic inequality", for the one is not possible without the other. That is the message of this book.
A large part of the work consists of reflections by Farmer on his experiences in Haiti and elsewhere and on the way in which the current worldwide economic structures engender a genuine and systematic violence against the rights of the poor. Strongly inspired by liberation theology (though not necessarily religious), Farmer eloquently and effectively contrasts the heavy importance attached to individual political and legal rights with the way in which the violations of rights done by structural inequalities and injustices is wholly ignored in the same circles that would complain about the former. Rights issues are the domain of jurists, development issues the domain of (liberal) economists; but the way in which the poor and weak are constantly crushed by the systematic repression that is poverty and inequality, at least as real and at least as much a violation as any torture, that seems to be the domain of nobody at all. As Paul Farmer clearly shows, even in the lately so blossoming domain of medical and bioethics the issue of socio-economic structures is completely swept under the carpet. As he says, this really is the "elephant in the room".
The same also goes for the oft-invoked importance of efficiency. Callous and counterproductive Western, often American, inspired healthcare policies in the developing nations (among which we must now sadly share Russia as well) generally fail at providing effective treatment against simple preventable disease such as TBC, because those medications that would actually help are considered "not cost-effective". This is in fact just a polite way of saying "we don't care about these people", but then phrased in a manner that will lead to less of an uproar in the newspapers. Farmer however is not fooled so easily, and sees this for what it is - a structural repression of the developing nations by the developed ones, in the name of "efficiency", i.e. efficiency in achieving the aims of the Western states.
This book is a very powerful work, and a strong indictment of the prevailing attitude towards healthcare and development issues and the little attention paid to their interrelation. It also demonstrates convincingly how the current worldwide economic system is bad for everybody's health. And what could be a more important thing than that?
Pathologies of Power.......2007-05-12
Read this book. Paul Farmer is one of the few who can enlighten us to a more profound understanding of the mechanisms that underlie disease in so many of its forms. He sees farther than most of us and comes to his conclusions with a gigantic intellect and hard hard hands-on work with the poor and ill for over 2 decades in Haiti and elsewhere. He is our Albert Schweitzer. His concept of "structural violence", that set of social and economic intrastructure deficits that set aside "rich" from "poor" and lays open the environment for not only the contagious diseases like TB and HIV, but also allows for the malnourishment and the reduced choices in nutrition, allows for the maintenance of the dearth of available health care resources, sanitation and educational systems, the conflation of which prevents protection against the illnesses of poverty, puts the reader into the realm of being forced to see a hidden and dirty truth. His prose is mutedly angry. His emotions are unmistakably righteous. His undressing of some of the "liberal" NGO mentality is eye opening. He is the real deal. Read his elegant words and get a glimpse at reality. We are sadly blinded to it by some of the "pathologies" of the powers that be. I have been a physician for almost 30 years. I've given this book to my sons who are young physicians. The thoroughness of his presentation of the causes of the societal ills that allow for the illnesses, and the bibiography that supports his theses are encylopedic in scope. Again, he is the real deal.
passion for the poor.......2007-01-18
Paul Farmer is a Harvard MD and PhD (anthropology), clinician, tuberculosis specialist, author of numerous books and scholarly articles, recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, and Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School--when he is not living in a hut in his beloved Haiti where he founded Partners in Health, or traveling a quarter million miles a year to lecture, visit prisons, or meet with George Soros or the Gates Foundation. Most important of all, Farmer is an unapologetic, outspoken, and radical advocate for the poorest of the poor. Adequate health care, he insists, is a basic human right for every human being, and our world is failing miserably in this regard. His fascinating life story is told by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder in the book Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).
According to a World Bank study from 1993, today in Sub-Saharan Africa "the median age at death is less than five years," (p. xi; no typographical error). Such deplorable disparities between rich and poor, Farmer writes, are not random occurrences, they are not accidental, inescapable or necessary. Rather, they result from pathologies of power, human agency, and structural violence. Quoting the liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, "The poor of the world are not the causal products of human history. No, poverty results from the actions of other human beings" (p. 143). Which is to say that the brutal asymmetry that consigns over half the world to wretchedness is not irremediable. Resignation, in fact, is the most inexcusable choice we could make. However daunting and complex, we can ameliorate these unacceptable conditions if we make other choices: "This book is a physician-anthropologist's effort to reveal the ways in which the most basic right--the right to survive--is trampled in an age of great affluence, and it argues that the matter should be considered the most pressing one of our times" (p. 6).
Farmer spends considerable time charting anecdotal evidence from his two decades of clinical practice serving the poorest of the poor. These detailed case studies from Haiti, Chiapas, Peru, Russia and Cuba are not mere examples but instead emblematic of the problem. Further, following liberation theologians who have deeply influenced him, Farmer strongly advocates listening carefully to the voices of the poor themselves, in their own words, and not only to health "experts" in Geneva, New York and Paris. "I believe," writes Farmer, that 'the poor and impoverished of the world, in virtue of their very reality, constitute the most radical question of the truth of this world, as well as the most correct response to this question'" (p. 202).
Some will dismiss rhetoric like that as from a wild-eyed idealist, or an angry extremist, but Farmer would respond that what is extreme and harsh are the conditions of way too many human beings in the world, which ought to evoke anger, and not his passionate advocacy for them (p. 254). Rather than merely "manage" these horrible social inequalities, Farmer challenges each one of us to make a difference by what he calls "pragmatic solidarity" with the poor.
Farmer lucid and compelling as ever.......2007-01-04
For anyone who is inspired by the remarkable work Paul Farmer has engaged in over the years, this book offers a sound explanation of his guiding doctrine on human rights and healthcare for the poor.
Toward a "real" medical ethics.......2006-11-11
It's a big world, but we Americans seem to reside in a small one, at least those of us fortunate enough to be insured and able to afford the health care we need. Many fellow US citizens cannot afford to be sick or ill at all, yet their needs may be tended only once they are so ill that emergency room care is required, but maybe not even then. Then there are the desperately poor of other nations and whole regions of the world that have virtually no care at all. This book is about those folks and medicine as it is currently practiced and dispensed here and abroad. Author Doctor Paul Farmer shows that modern medical practice violates the very ethos that spawned the impulse to heal in the first place.
This book has a lot of structural problems that, while off-putting, are easily ignored by the enormous contribution Farmer makes to our understanding of a set of topics that most of us have not thought about at all. This is an important and inspired book, one that is clear and easy to read, although marred by redundancy that a good editor might have helped eliminate. The thesis topic is that the desperately poor deserve more attention, not less as they now are accorded, because they are more vulnerable by definition. Farmer successfully questions the allocation of our resources toward corporate profits rather than treating the poor of the world.
Farmer's case studies based on his experience of working in Boston, Hattie, and the Russian Republic amply illustrate that our health care priorities are backward and unjust at best, pernicious and self defeating at worst. Every medical ethics course in the US ought to require this along with, or in place of, their existing textbooks that grind over the hoary issues of abortion and euthanasia, and a lot of other topics that are luxuries of a rich society that all but ignores those in greatest need.
Book Description
No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes -- mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product -- with such sweep and enlivening detail.
Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process -- financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal -- are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate executives, public health investigators, and antismoking activists who have clashed ever more stridently as Americans debate whether smoking should be closely regulated as a major health menace.
We see tobacco spread rapidly from its aboriginal sources in the New World 500 years ago, as it becomes increasingly viewed by some as sinful and some as alluring, and by government as a windfall source of tax revenue. With the arrival of the cigarette in the late-nineteenth century, smoking changes from a luxury and occasional pastime to an everyday -- to some, indispensable -- habit, aided markedly by the exuberance of the tobacco huskers.
This free-enterprise success saga grows shadowed, from the middle of this century, as science begins to understand the cigarette's toxicity. Ironically the more detailed and persuasive the findings by medical investigators, the more cigarette makers prosper by seeming to modify their product with filters and reduced dosages of tar and nicotine.
We see the tobacco manufacturers come under intensifying assault as a rogue industry for knowingly and callously plying their hazardous wares while insisting that the health charges against them (a) remain unproven, and (b) are universally understood, so smokers indulge at their own risk.
Among the eye-opening disclosures here: outrageous pseudo-scientific claims made for cigarettes throughout the '30s and '40s, and the story of how the tobacco industry and the National Cancer Institute spent millions to develop a "safer" cigarette that was never brought to market.
Dealing with an emotional subject that has generated more heat than light, this book is a dispassionate tour de force that examines the nature of the companies' culpability, the complicity of society as a whole, and the shaky moral ground claimed by smokers who are now demanding recompense.
Customer Reviews:
Great history book.......2005-10-15
Just about every great society has one crop whose presence is intertwined throughout its history, effecting the history, culture, and economics of the nation. For China it would be rice, potatoes for Ireland, coca for Columbia, and most likely tobacco for America. This Pulitzer-Prize winning book shows how and why tobacco is so important to America's history. Specifically, the book traces and examines the economic role of tobacco and the economic policies of the tobacco companies (growers, traders, sellers, etc...) from the 1800s on through the 1990s.
Subjects that are covered in this tome include tobacco farming, the making of cigarettes, advertising in papers, radio, TV and billboards, lobbying of govt officials to reduce regulation, PR wars with health advocates, promotion of overseas sales, and of course, the court cases fought between Big Tobacco (RJR,Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, etc...) and various consumers, consumer groups, government agencies, and governments. The book puts all of this together in a chronological history of tobacco with an emphasis on the role of big corporations like Philip Morris. The author has put this book together using a wide variety of sources both primary and secondary, including a lot of interviews with former and current employees at tobacco companies.
By reading this book, one learns a lot about various aspects of American law, culture, economics, and history. These include consumer relations, agro-business, medical research, lobbying, and advertising. OVerall, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it for anyone to read.
Wall Street Journal Reporter Narrates History of CIgarette Making.......2005-08-03
Well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize that it won, this book
tells the story of the growth of the industry - and the political
controversies about it - largely through the eyes of the main Tobacco Industry executives and lawyers. Beautifully written and
wittily objective, this is the best single place to start to understand this complex 20th century American phenomeon.
A History Lesson in Tobacco.......2002-10-21
I highly recommend Ashes to Ashes, by Richard Kluger, to anyone who wants to know more about the tobacco industry. Kluger provides a comprehensive history, beginning with the temperance of the tobacco leaf and the physical labor involved in producing marketable tobacco, and ending with the struggles the tobacco industry now faces with public health groups and government regulations. Kluger's narrative style makes this thick, fact packed book easy to read. Rich in history, critical, and thought provoking, Ashes to Ashes is a worthwhile read.
Long, but good.......2002-07-03
I'm not a smoker (fortunately my parents totally discouraged me from it, and I had enough smarts to avoid it anyway) but I found this history of the cigarette industry to be quite interesting--especially the facts about the early years.
It got a little dry towards the end, and the whole indictment of the industry has gotten a bit repetitious; I suspect at the time the book was published the message was new, but the message has gotten old fast. (Yes, it's clear that they knew about the health issues, and yes, they did very little about it.)
Overall it's a good read, especially the first half. If you're at all curious about how the cigarette industry came to be, the book does a great job of describing the companies and personalities involved.
Y'all said it: good but loooooong.......2001-09-28
Kluger's research is impressively thorough, his writing is lucid, and his insights -- well, insightful. But his inability to leave any detail unexamined makes this more of a resource book than a narrative. Slogging through to the end, became a chore. I mean, there ARE a few other books I'd like to get to before I die . . .
Amazon.com
The worst maritime disaster in American history has received little historical attention, even though more people died from the 1865 Sultana explosion than drowned when the Titanic sank in 1912. Gene Eric Salecker painfully reconstructs the events leading up to the tragedy, when more than 2,000 federal troops crowded onto a side-wheel steamboat built to carry fewer than 300 people. Most of them were former prisoners of war, paroled after the Confederate surrender and finally heading home after years of struggle. We will never know why three of the Sultana's big boilers blew up and claimed 1,700 lives, although Salecker runs through several possible causes. Disaster on the Mississippi is an authoritative account of a forgotten chapter of American history.
Customer Reviews:
Bravo Gene, from a former colleague!.......2003-12-07
What an fascinating nugget of US History. The soldiers got their just day with your vivid and detailed account. Fact truly is stranger than fiction. I felt like I truly got a naval education, didn't know much about ships/boats before this read.
BTW, this is Patrick.
Historically accurate and vividly written.......2001-03-07
I was very impressed with this book. It was obviously well researched and includes numerous quotes from survivors. Historical documents enhance the first hand accounts.
The details of the boat trip including the explosion are vividly written. This is the best book I've read about the Sultana Tragedy.
Recounting a forgotten disaster.......2000-08-12
The sinking of the steamboat Sultana was the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. History. Strangely, even though it occurred at the end of the Civil War and most of the dead were returning Union POWs, it is an almost forgotten event. Author Salecker recalls the bureaucratic bungling and corruption that helped lead to the diaster as well as a harrowing account from the survivors. This is a good history book that sheds light on the memories of the dead and the survivors.
Excellent - MUST reading for all history buffs........1999-05-30
Very well researched and composed. One feels as if they are right there with the soldiers and civilians as they struggle for survival not only from the flames that are engulfing them, but from the mass of humanity that is in the frigid waters of the swollen Mississippi.
Very vivid accounts of suffering with physical and mental challanges in a time when the soldiers should be almost at their happiest moment - going home.
Average customer rating:
- Overdetailed
- A Forest Blocked by Trees
- A Whole New Way to Think About Nazis
- A Healthy National Interest
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The Nazi War on Cancer
Robert N. Proctor
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Similar Items:
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Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis
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Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer
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The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution
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Doctors Under Hitler
ASIN: 0691070512 |
Amazon.com
Familiar as we are with the horrific history of Nazi medicine and science, it may come as a surprise to learn that the Nazi war against cancer was the most aggressive in the world. Robert N. Proctor's thought-provoking book, The Nazi War on Cancer recounts this little-known story. The Nazis were very concerned about protecting the health of the "Volk." Cancer was seen as a growing threat--and perhaps even held a special place in Adolf Hitler's imagination (his mother, Klara, died from breast cancer in 1907). The Nazi doctors fought their war against cancer on many fronts, battling environmental and workplace hazards (restrictions on the use of asbestos) and recommending food standards (bans on carcinogenic pesticides and food dyes) and early detection ("men were advised to get their colons checked as often as they would check the engines of their cars..."). Armed with the world's most sophisticated tobacco-disease epidemiology--they were the first to link smoking to lung cancer definitively--Nazi doctors were especially passionate about the hazards of tobacco. Hitler himself was a devout nonsmoker, and credited his political success to kicking the habit. Proctor does an excellent job of charting these anticancer efforts--part of what he terms "the 'flip side' of fascism"--and, along the way, touches on some unsettling issues. Can an immoral regime promote and produce morally responsible science? Or, in Proctor's words, "Do we look at history differently when we learn that ... Nazi health officials worried about asbestos-induced lung cancer? I think we do. We learn that Nazism was a more subtle phenomenon than we commonly imagine, more seductive, more plausible."
Proctor is no apologist--one of his earlier books, Racial Hygiene is a scathing account of Nazi atrocities--but he clearly wants to engage in the complex moral discussions surrounding the fascist production of science and Holocaust studies. Proctor's thorough research, excellent examples, and dozens of illustrations are complemented by his authoritative prose. The Nazi War on Cancer is a fine addition to the literature on both the Holocaust and the history of medicine. --C.B. Delaney
Book Description
Collaboration in the Holocaust. Murderous and torturous medical experiments. The "euthanasia" of hundreds of thousands of people with mental or physical disabilities. Widespread sterilization of "the unfit." Nazi doctors committed these and countless other atrocities as part of Hitler's warped quest to create a German master race. Robert Proctor recently made the explosive discovery, however, that Nazi Germany was also decades ahead of other countries in promoting health reforms that we today regard as progressive and socially responsible. Most startling, Nazi scientists were the first to definitively link lung cancer and cigarette smoking. Proctor explores the controversial and troubling questions that such findings raise: Were the Nazis more complex morally than we thought? Can good science come from an evil regime? What might this reveal about health activism in our own society? Proctor argues that we must view Hitler's Germany more subtly than we have in the past. But he also concludes that the Nazis' forward-looking health activism ultimately came from the same twisted root as their medical crimes: the ideal of a sanitary racial utopia reserved exclusively for pure and healthy Germans.
Author of an earlier groundbreaking work on Nazi medical horrors, Proctor began this book after discovering documents showing that the Nazis conducted the most aggressive antismoking campaign in modern history. Further research revealed that Hitler's government passed a wide range of public health measures, including restrictions on asbestos, radiation, pesticides, and food dyes. Nazi health officials introduced strict occupational health and safety standards, and promoted such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans. These policies went hand in hand with health propaganda that, for example, idealized the Führer's body and his nonsmoking, vegetarian lifestyle. Proctor shows that cancer also became an important social metaphor, as the Nazis portrayed Jews and other "enemies of the Volk" as tumors that must be eliminated from the German body politic.
This is a disturbing and profoundly important book. It is only by appreciating the connections between the "normal" and the "monstrous" aspects of Nazi science and policy, Proctor reveals, that we can fully understand not just the horror of fascism, but also its deep and seductive appeal even to otherwise right-thinking Germans.
Customer Reviews:
Overdetailed.......2002-01-10
A most interesting subject, not least because of similarities between today's "health nazis" and the real nazis! But for the non-specialist reader (such as myself) there is a little too much mundane detail, and discussion of what paper was published in what year, who wrote it, how often it was cited ...
One nice aspect: Proctor has no time for "cultural relativism" applied to mass murder, and is free of the prolix heavy prose many academics favor.
A Forest Blocked by Trees.......2000-12-02
Robert Proctor presents a great deal of evidence that the nazis' exerted massive control over most facets of ordinary citizen's lives. Yet somehow, he never reaches the obvious conclusion that such compulsive regulations,even if arguably well intentioned,ultimately lead to a large scale sacrifice of basic freedoms.
He explains how the nazis greatly restricted tobacco advertising, banned smoking in most public buildings, increasingly restricted and regulated tobacco farmers growing abilities, and engaged in a sophisticated anti-smoking public relations campaign. (Suing tobacco companies for announced consequences was a stunt that mysteriously eluded Hitler's thugs.) Despite the frightening parallels to the current war on tobacco, Mr. Proctor never even hints at the analogy. Curiously, he seems to take an approach that such alleged concern for public health shows nazism to be a more complex dogma than commonly presumed. While nothing present in the book betokens even a trace of sympathy for the Third Reich, this viewpoint seems incredibly naive. It's easy to wonder if Hitler and company were truly concerned with promoting public health. The unquenchable lust for absolute control is a far more believable motive.
Incongruously some of the book's desultory details lend further certitude to its unpromulgated thesis. Hitler not only abstained from tobacco; he also never drank and was,for the most part--a vegetarian. Frighteningly he also was an animal rights activist. The book reruns a nazi-era cartoon depicting many liberated lab animals giving the nazi salute to Hermann Goring after he outlawed animal experimentation and promised to send violators to a concentration camp. Also included is a fitting quote -now too widely suppressed from Joseph Goebbles, `the fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian; he views Christianity as a symptom of decay." Controversial as it may be in some circles, such a quote proves that nazism viewed Christianity as hatefully as it did Judaism. Passing coverage is given to the Third Reich's forays into euthanasia and eugenics. Another striking morsel is the reporting of a widespread nazi-era whispered joke `What is the ideal German? Blond like Hitler. Slim like Goring. Masculine like Goebbles...' implying that Gautlier Goebble's homosexuality was common knowledge. Nazi linguistic restrictions seem to be the counterpart of modern day `hate speech.' Words such as `catastrophe,' sabotage,' and `assassination' were to be avoided, and in a portentous move, `cripple' was replaced by `handicapped. Proctor also suggests `the word `enlightenment' (was) probably used more in the nazi period than at any other time.'
Perhaps the ultimate overlooked point of this work is the suggestion that Adolph Hitler with his anti-tobacco, anti-religion, pro-animal rights, pro-government intrusion would find success as a modern day liberal.
A Whole New Way to Think About Nazis.......2000-09-06
There's a lot of interesting material in this book: Nazi ideas of the proper diet, indications that the Nazi Institute for Cancer Research may have been a cover for developing bioweapons, and, of course, the chapter that has garnered the most attention: "The Campaign Against Tobacco". Throughout the book Proctor uses the Nazi concern with cancer to show that Nazi science, while often motivated by bizarre or evil notions, wasn't always shoddy. He also shows that it's a mistake to think of Nazi Germany as a totalitarian monolith that always reflected Hitler's will.
For instance, while Hitler wanted to eventually ban smoking, he was ultimately defeated by cultural resistance to the notion and the desire to keep tobacco taxes coming in and tobacco exports leaving. Still, it was Nazi science that first indicated that smoking was harmful though its general emphasis on clinical studies with few patients caused it to be ignored by epidemiologists in other countries. However, the Anglo-American scientists who made their reputations by proving that smoking was a major cause of lung cancer were preceded more than 10 years by Franz H. Muller's dissertation on that link, the first "case-control epidemiologic" study to do so. And he did it in 1939 Germany.
Besides its material on Nazi scientific efforts to diagnose, cure, and prevent cancer, the book also has some very interesting illustrations of Nazi public health propaganda. My favorite illustration, though, is of various animals giving the "Heil" salute to Goering who banned vivisection in 1933.
My one quibble with the book is Proctor's insistence that his book provides no aid and comfort to those, like libertarian Jacob Sullum -- whose book FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: THE ANTI-SMOKING CRUSADE AND THE TYRANNY OF PUBLIC HEALTH is specifically mentioned in the final chapter -- who wish to link anti-smoking efforts with Nazis. I've never heard any anti-smoking activist propose euthanasia programs or putting people in concentration camps. However, the Nazi regime justified its coercive public health measures with the philosophy that your body was state property and "nutrition was not a private matter". And, as in modern America, economic rationales were given for the Nazi laws intended to make life difficult for smokers. Proctor also speculates, in the Prologue, that public health measures like the Nazi war on tobacco could have been one of the appealing tunes in the siren suite of Hitler's fascism. Not everyone became a Nazi to kill Jews. And not all the doctors who signed up with the Nazi Party were quacks. This book does provide some evidence that coercive public health measures that go beyond mere education can spring from a totalitarian impulse.
A Healthy National Interest.......2000-03-24
As we walk away from the twentieth century, its most publicized reign of terror, Nazi Germany, continues to confound many. Modern history has tirelessly portrayed the sheer evil unleashed on Europe by Hitler and the National Socialist Party. The Nazis, along with the Soviet Communists, ensured that the people of Central and Eastern Europe had to endure at least a half-century of life within the brutal confines of totalitarian society. However, the passage of time presents us an opportunity to see Nazism as something much subtler than an overpowering evil force.
Historian Robert N. Proctor guides readers through Hitler-led Germany in "The Nazi War on Cancer." He examines a ruling regime and society grappling with health problems such as the exposure of factory workers to carcinogens in the plant, the damage caused by alcohol and tobacco use and the impact of poor diet. Proctor considers how public health concerns influenced the goal of creating a stronger, healthier and racially-pure population.
The deliberation over public health during the Nazi era pushed German researchers and scientists ahead of their counterparts around the rest of the industrialized world in connecting many health problems to the fast-paced and often stressful twentieth century lifestyle. Proctor does not portray the German medical elite as being completely manipulated by the Nazis. In fact, many men of sceince used the Nazi takeover of Germany as an opening to purge Jews, Socialists and Communists from important research positions. Proctor concludes that the Nazi experience with public health gives us an opportunity to understand the appeal and triumph of fascism as more than an aberration. Overall, Proctor presents a solid study of German medicine under Nazi rule. He brings many interesting facts to light which may surprise many readers who picture the Nazis as an all-powerful wave washing over and consuming all of Germany. In presenting his study, Proctor is mindful that many may misuse his facts to discredit modern public health iniatives or to justify the existence of Nazism though he does not let this stop him from delivering a thougt-provoking interpretation of a little known aspect of twentieth century history.
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Cold Wars: The Fight Against the Common Cold
David Tyrrell
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
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ASIN: 019263285X |
Book Description
Cold Wars tells the story of the common cold, the most widespread disease of all. From ancient Egypt to the space age, colds have plagued mankind, and many attempts have been made to find a cure. Today, we spend millions of pounds on remedies and businesses lose millions of pounds through employee sickness - but are we any closer to conquering the cold? In the aftermath of the Second World War, a concerted effort was made in the UK to resolve the scientific conundrum of the common cold. A Common Cold Unit was established near Salisbury, making use of some rather primitive facilities provided by the American Red Cross, and for nearly 50 years was part of the British medical establishment. Much of the research was done on volunteers, who came in large numbers to the CCU to spend days in isolation while scientists attempted to give them a cold. Many eminent scientists, including JAmes Lovelock, were part of the attempt to understand the common cold. This book begins with a brief history of colds through the centuries, describing what earlier generations believed and the strange treatments they tried. That the cold was caused by a virus was only uncovered at the beginning of the last century. The authors vividly describe the establishment of the Common Cold Unit, and its work in uncovering the causes and transmission of the cold and analysing possible treatments. Finally, they assess the progress made in recent years in understanding the psychological aspects of colds, and the latest research on prevention and cures. Cold Wars offers a fascinating account of an eccentric, but effective, attempt to unravel the mysteries of the common cold.
Book Description
Color-coded terrorism "alerts" are issued, then "lifted" with no explanation. False alarms can, like crying wolf, desensitize people to a real need to be on alert. And that psychic numbing is just one effect discussed in this book by fifteen psychologists teamed up for a critical look at the U.S. war on terrorism. These experts are led by the Chairman of the American Psychological Association task force charged with pinpointing the effect of our anti-terrorism efforts on America's mental health. Together, they present the most up-to-date and intriguing picture we have of the fallout on our own people from our own programs. The text spotlights fueled stereotyping of foreigners, increased domestic hate crimes, fear, depression and helplessness, as well as increasing militancy and belligerence, especially among students. Perhaps most disturbing in the "land of the free," our attention is drawn to growing acceptance of restrictions on our personal freedoms, and acceptance of human rights violations. Contributors to this collection aim to give us a reality check, looking at what our national reactions to terrorism have been, how those reactions have affected the psyche of our people and whether this has made us stronger or weaker, and more or less likely to be the target for future attacks.
Customer Reviews:
COLLATERAL DAMAGE examines national reactions to terrorism as a whole.......2006-11-07
COLLATERAL DAMAGE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICA'S WAR ON TERRORISM goes beyond other books which focus on terrorist tactics to consider the long-term psychological impact of terrorism on this country. From the increased stereotyping of and prejudice against foreigners in general and Arabs in particular to increases in domestic hate crimes and depression, militancy and anger, COLLATERAL DAMAGE examines national reactions to terrorism as a whole and is essential for any in-depth college-level military or social science collection.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Description
"When I tell friends at home in Canada abut the things I have seen, they often say, 'It must be so depressing.' But my work has never felt depressing. Doctors Without Borders is an organization built to act, to make things better. Together with other volunteers and the support of millions of people around the world, we don't have to sit by helplessly and see a disaster unfold before us, wondering what on earth we can do. The gift of action is ours."
When children are caught in civil wars, when earthquakes destroy homes and villages, when AIDS and other diseases shatter families and communities - the volunteers of Doctors Without Borders are there. Their mission is simple - to bring life-saving care to the world's neediest people and to speak out when the rights of the people in their care are abused or violated.
Médecins Sans Frontières, known in English as Doctors Without Borders and by its volunteers as MSF, is the world's largest independent medical humanitarian relief organization. Every year, more than 3,000 MSF volunteers and 12,000 local men and women bring medical aid to people in more than 70 countries.
In Healing Our World, David Morley presents his own story and the stories of other MSFers who have volunteered in some of the most dangerous and forgotten corners of the world - the Congo, El Salvador, Chechnya, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Afghanistan, southern Africa. These are stories about healing and helping people, about making the world a better place - stories filled with sorrow and hope, anger and idealism, determination and passion.
- The words and experiences - good and bad - of MSF volunteers who come from all over the world and every walk of life.
- Information about MSF's history, how it selects its volunteers and decides where to send them.
- Includes photographs from the field.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting but Short.......2002-08-06
I had read a review in Newsweek of Crab Walk (the story of the Geman Titanic) by Gunter Grass. Crab Walk is not yet available in English and I didn't want to wait until his book came out in English to learn more about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.
I read Sellwood's book in a few hours. It was a good appetizer, primarily focusing on 4 of the passengers.
I will definitely be looking for other books that further detail this fascinating story.
Book Description
This volume reveals the full extent of the 1991 Persian Gulf War's devastation (including oil spills seventy times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster, how the West armed Iraq, the link between oil fires and the storms that devastated Bangladesh and China in 1991, and the impact on Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Palestinian women and Desert Storm veterans) and how it has been deliberately played down and covered up in official accounts. arc/Arms Control Research Center is a public interest organization of scientists, economists, planners, and activists, based in San Francisco, California.
Book Description
Nothing so much as my own descriptions from that period convinced me that Professor Heston and his wife have come to the correct conclusion.--Albert Speer
Customer Reviews:
Was Hitler a tweaker? Find out!.......2006-01-11
This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. The Hestons are the absolute authorities on this subject....this book is referred to in many other texts about Hitler. He had a lot of strange medical problems and an even stranger doctor in Theo Morrell. So did he have Parkinsons? Syphilis? Was he addicted to methamphetamine? Was his freaky doctor poisoning him? Read this and see!
Unsolved Mysteries.......2005-07-10
I would recommend you this book, if you are a student of the medical science and/or if you are interested in "the unsolved mysteries" of WWII.
Anyway, you should have some basic knowledge of biochemistry and human genetics to take advantage of this book!
Always remember: the truth is somewhere out there ...
Ich empfehle dieses Buch denjenigen, die Medizin studieren und/oder ein Interesse an den ungelösten Geheimnissen des 2. Weltkrieges haben.
Um den Inhalt des Buches besser bewerten zu können, sollte man über Grundkenntnisse der Biochemie und Humangenetik verfügen!
Tja, die Wahrheit ist irgendwo da draußen ...
One of many alcohol or other drug addicted despots.......2004-12-11
Adolf Hitler was variously diagnosed as bipolar, schizophrenic and paranoid schizophrenic. He was also diagnosed as having had Parkinson's disease. Yet Hitler had none of these disorders: he was an amphetamine and barbiturate addict.
This marvelous little book, which reads like a medical mystery novel, slowly dismantles every other explanation for Hitler's increasingly reckless behavior. We can conjecture that he may have triggered barbiturate addiction long before amphetamine addiction. However, the reader is left with no doubt that injections given to him by the doctor without whom he "could not live," Dr. Morell, included large quantities of amphetamine, beginning by 1937. (Because Hitler can be seen moving his hands back and forth on his upper legs in a way consistent with amphetamine use, called "stereotypical behavior," in 1936 Olympic Games videos, use likely began a bit earlier.)
The authors offer numerous clues to addiction. When injections, widely believed to be multi-vitamins "specially compounded for the Fuhrer," ceased on occasion, Hitler experienced severe depression, a common symptom among newly abstinent amphetamine or cocaine addicts. He engaged in all-night monologues with an endless repetition of stories, along with increasingly disorganized thinking and confused syntax. As the authors point out, the latter would not be expected of someone considered to have been a supreme orator. His mood swings became more volatile, paranoia increased (a common side effect of amphetamine addiction) and, while early on he accepted blame for tactical errors, he developed a tendency to project blame onto others, a classic indication of addiction to psychotropic drugs (those capable of causing distortions of perception and memory).
Intravenous injections of the "special compound" increased from one to as many as five daily. While intravenous amphetamine use has the same effect as injecting cocaine, it is much longer lasting: the half-life of amphetamines is twelve times longer. He took barbiturates every night during WW2, no doubt needed to offset the effect of amphetamines to allow for sleep. Hitler also used narcotics from 1938 onward, in particular, Eukodal, an early version of Percodan. A potent mix of drugs such as this has adverse effects on a person's personality, thinking, perceptions and, consequently, behaviors (which I describe in my book, "Hidden Alcoholics").
Over-confidence and intoxication with his early successes, common to early-stage addiction, fuelled a propensity to risk-taking and impulsive behaviors. As his use progressed during WW2 he experienced tremors, often attributed to Parkinson's disease. However, heavy amphetamine use mimics Parkinson's, probably because the neurotransmitter dopamine is affected by both.(Interestingly, Yasir Arafat was also diagnosed by some to have this disease; if we look at Arafat's pupils, however, in almost every photograph they are big as the moon--a classic physical indication of amphetamine addiction.) A stereotypical behavior very common to amphetamine addicts, an incessant scratching (the description offered by amphetamine addicts is "bugs are crawling under their skin"), began by 1943.
The fact that no one figured this out until the first hardback printing of this book in 1979, 34 years after Hitler's death, provides some of the most damning evidence ever of how completely unaware biographers and historians are of the role of addiction in determining the course of events. They don't look for it because they don't know it's relevant. In my first book, "Drunks, Drugs & Debits," I wrote that someday historians and biographers would view their subjects in a new light when looking through the lens of alcohol or other drug addiction. Judging from the treatment of Yasir Arafat even after death, there is still a long way to go.
The only flaw in The Medical Casebook is that barbiturates are only mentioned in passing, explaining that Hitler didn't take them in large enough pharmacologic doses for addiction to have occurred. However, the mix of drugs, the fact that drugs potentiate each other in remarkably potent ways (two plus two equals ten) and continuous use strongly suggests that this addiction intertwined with amphetamine use to create the most reviled monster in history. It is an irony of history that Hitler chose never to drink because of the vile effects that alcoholism had on others, in particular his violent alcoholic step-father.
Very dry reading, but interesting nonetheless.......2004-03-01
Heston doesn't write especially well, so expect no fireworks among the pages. However, he has presented an accurate and clinical history of Hitler's health. The most interesting portions relate to Dr. Theo Morell, who became Hitler's personal physician in 1935. Morell was a hygenically-challenged mess whom all in the Hitler inner circle despised. Eva Braun said she would not allow "that pig" to get near her. Still, Morell exerted considerable influence over Hitler, who became physically dependent on the array of drugs Morell injected into him. By 1942, Hitler's physical decline was alarming, and Morell was dousing him with uppers to get up in the morning and downers to allow him sleep.
The "raving lunatic" side of Hitler, always depicted in motion pictures, is a myth. He was nothing like the movie Hitlers, as this book eloquently shows. He was, however, hopelessly addicted to amphetimines and barbituates for many years prior to his 1945 death. Though dry reading, it still will hold your interest.
Great book.........2002-06-27
Although I have little interest in or understanding of this particular subject (medicine, health & illness, etc.) it is quite interesting for me inasmuch as it pertains to the Fuehrer. I was struck by the way the authors treated "Patient Hitler", presenting the facts in a clear and unbiased way.
The book is brief and offers the reader clear-cut medical data and explanations, sans negative commentary and personal prejudices, which I found pleasantly refreshing.
It was particularly insightful reading which drugs Hitler was given and how he reacted to each one. I also found their remarks about Hitler's mental state--especially throughout the last year of his life--of great value historically.
All in all it was really a quite fascinating read.
Books:
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
- Robert E. Lee on Leadership: Executive Lessons in Character, Courage, and Vision (On Leadership)
- Soviet Lend-Lease Fighter Aces of World War 2 (Aircraft of the Aces)
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- The Accusers
- The Apocalypse Now Book
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Special Edition
- The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II
- The Book Thief (Book Sense Book of the Year Children's Literature (Awards))
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