Amazon.com
In the first major book on AIDS, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts examines the making of an epidemic. Shilts researched and reported the book exhaustively, chronicling almost day-by-day the first five years of AIDS. His work is critical of the medical and scientific communities' initial response and particularly harsh on the Reagan Administration, who he claims cut funding, ignored calls for action and deliberately misled Congress. Shilts doesn't stop there, wondering why more people in the gay community, the mass media and the country at large didn't stand up in anger more quickly. The AIDS pandemic is one of the most striking developments of the late 20th century and this is the definitive story of its beginnings.
Book Description
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 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.
Customer Reviews:
The AIDS Epidemic.......2007-05-10
Trace the beginning of the AIDS virus through society with this compelling account of the epidemic. You'll be shocked and horrified.
important, profound piece of journalism..........2007-02-26
I read this book in 1991 after caring for a brother who died from AIDS. When he was alive and we were together we didn't know a thing about this virus except what it was doing to our lives. About five years after his time was up a friend gave me a copy of The Band Played On. It changed my life forever. This book might be the most important, profound and historical piece of journalism written in our time. This book should be required reading for future generations. Tracing the onslaught of the virus from patient zero to Rock Hudson. Randy Shilts leaves no one unscathed in our failed immediate response to the greatest health risk of our lifetime. There's blame and accountability for everyone politicians, gay community, doctors, society but this book is not about blame and pointing fingers. It is ultimately about a society facing it's ugly little secrets and coming to grips about what seperates us is maybe not as important as what unites us. If and when we ever reach the top of the mountain and can look down at what this virus has wrought on us and we can confidently say 'never again', each man and woman will have to look at their own soul's and search inside of themselves for the answer to the following question. Did I do enough during the greatest health plague of our times to make a difference? Randy Shilts certainly has by writing the most detailed, historical look at the early days of the AIDS crisis. By reading this book I was inspired to do my share. God bless us.
magnificent and riveting.......2007-02-07
I read this as background for a thesis paper on journalism on HIV; I didn't realize quite what I was getting into with this one.
It may be the greatest non ficton books I've ever read, an utterly moving and compelling account of the epidemic and response. Shilts makes a high drama out of it; everything from the opening quote and the fonts makes the book as tragically poetic as it is informative and shocking.
Based on my work, I'd say it's also really a gold standard for journalism on HIV. He may have his personal feelings about it, but all they inspired him to do is question authority and delve deeper. He's very scrupulous about his sources and his research.
If you only ever read one book on the HIV epidemic, make it this one.
You've heard of .......2007-01-16
"The age of dinosaurs" or "the age of mammals"? Wrong. All ages have been "The Age of Microbes". And they mutate fast, and are lookin' for a home. A memorable scene in "Angels in America" is of a PWA "visited" by his ancestors who had been dispatched by fleas on rats -- or an infected water pump.
Randy, God bless his soul, did not cut his own gay community any slack. A message to take away -- You are ultimately responsible for your own health. Not your doctor, not the government, not the CDC. There are plenty of threats you cannot do anything about. Why neglect those you can?
The Best Book I Read in 2005 .......2006-07-26
And the Band Played On is an act of phenomenal research and writing, and a very frightening book on many levels because of the political wrangling, political bumbling, and political disregard for a medical crisis which cost the lives of so many, the scientific in-fighting which slowed medical break throughs and sacrificed lives, and the insanity of national agencies which were supposed to be saving lives, but which in this case knowingly risked the lives of many either because they didn't want to do the work, didn't want to spend the money, or didn't want to anger certain political groups. Gay men were deemed to be utterly dispensable by so many.
It's the sign of a good book when it brings out strong emotions. This book provoked in me anger, rage, confusion, compassion, sadness, and tears. I wish I could thank all those, like Don Francis, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Selma Dritz, Marc Conant, Dr. Dale Lawrence, Paul Volberding, and Dr. Arye Rubenstein, who tried so hard, against such overwhelming odds, to save lives quickly. I would also chastise President Ronald Reagan and Merve Silverman and give Margaret Heckler and Bob Gallo a piece of my mind -- the skunks!
I am thankful that there are politicians like Orrin Hatch and people behind the scenes like Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones. Though he was woefully slow in responding I'm grateful for the response of C. Everett Koop and that once having made his stand he never wavered and took it to the media wherever he could.
Randy Shilts did an excellent job of showing the culture in the United States and France and the politics in the medical and scientific communities and the political posture and arena during the 1980s. He also humanized the crisis by following many of the patients from onset of medical problems to death (Enno Poersch, Gary Walsh, Frances Borchelt, Bill Kraus, and Gaetan Dugas) and by following the doctors and scientists in their fight to discover the properties of this terrible disease and conquer it. It was enlightening and helpful to have the book structured as a time line.
The amount and variety of research done for this book is astounding, requiring Shilts to conduct hundreds of interviews and read millions of pages of articles and medical material. In reading this book, my education has been enhanced and my life is more full and forever changed.
It is a great tragedy that AIDS killed Randy Shilts as it had killed so many other innocents, and that as I write this there is still no cure for AIDS. As far as I can tell, it is again being largely ignored by governments and the medical community. Where will the next Randy Shilts, Bill Kraus, and Dr. Gottlieb and the other saviors come from--and will they come soon enough?
Customer Reviews:
The AIDS Epidemic.......2007-05-10
Trace the beginning of the AIDS virus through society with this compelling account of the epidemic. You'll be shocked and horrified.
important, profound piece of journalism..........2007-02-26
I read this book in 1991 after caring for a brother who died from AIDS. When he was alive and we were together we didn't know a thing about this virus except what it was doing to our lives. About five years after his time was up a friend gave me a copy of The Band Played On. It changed my life forever. This book might be the most important, profound and historical piece of journalism written in our time. This book should be required reading for future generations. Tracing the onslaught of the virus from patient zero to Rock Hudson. Randy Shilts leaves no one unscathed in our failed immediate response to the greatest health risk of our lifetime. There's blame and accountability for everyone politicians, gay community, doctors, society but this book is not about blame and pointing fingers. It is ultimately about a society facing it's ugly little secrets and coming to grips about what seperates us is maybe not as important as what unites us. If and when we ever reach the top of the mountain and can look down at what this virus has wrought on us and we can confidently say 'never again', each man and woman will have to look at their own soul's and search inside of themselves for the answer to the following question. Did I do enough during the greatest health plague of our times to make a difference? Randy Shilts certainly has by writing the most detailed, historical look at the early days of the AIDS crisis. By reading this book I was inspired to do my share. God bless us.
magnificent and riveting.......2007-02-07
I read this as background for a thesis paper on journalism on HIV; I didn't realize quite what I was getting into with this one.
It may be the greatest non ficton books I've ever read, an utterly moving and compelling account of the epidemic and response. Shilts makes a high drama out of it; everything from the opening quote and the fonts makes the book as tragically poetic as it is informative and shocking.
Based on my work, I'd say it's also really a gold standard for journalism on HIV. He may have his personal feelings about it, but all they inspired him to do is question authority and delve deeper. He's very scrupulous about his sources and his research.
If you only ever read one book on the HIV epidemic, make it this one.
You've heard of .......2007-01-16
"The age of dinosaurs" or "the age of mammals"? Wrong. All ages have been "The Age of Microbes". And they mutate fast, and are lookin' for a home. A memorable scene in "Angels in America" is of a PWA "visited" by his ancestors who had been dispatched by fleas on rats -- or an infected water pump.
Randy, God bless his soul, did not cut his own gay community any slack. A message to take away -- You are ultimately responsible for your own health. Not your doctor, not the government, not the CDC. There are plenty of threats you cannot do anything about. Why neglect those you can?
The Best Book I Read in 2005 .......2006-07-26
And the Band Played On is an act of phenomenal research and writing, and a very frightening book on many levels because of the political wrangling, political bumbling, and political disregard for a medical crisis which cost the lives of so many, the scientific in-fighting which slowed medical break throughs and sacrificed lives, and the insanity of national agencies which were supposed to be saving lives, but which in this case knowingly risked the lives of many either because they didn't want to do the work, didn't want to spend the money, or didn't want to anger certain political groups. Gay men were deemed to be utterly dispensable by so many.
It's the sign of a good book when it brings out strong emotions. This book provoked in me anger, rage, confusion, compassion, sadness, and tears. I wish I could thank all those, like Don Francis, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Selma Dritz, Marc Conant, Dr. Dale Lawrence, Paul Volberding, and Dr. Arye Rubenstein, who tried so hard, against such overwhelming odds, to save lives quickly. I would also chastise President Ronald Reagan and Merve Silverman and give Margaret Heckler and Bob Gallo a piece of my mind -- the skunks!
I am thankful that there are politicians like Orrin Hatch and people behind the scenes like Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones. Though he was woefully slow in responding I'm grateful for the response of C. Everett Koop and that once having made his stand he never wavered and took it to the media wherever he could.
Randy Shilts did an excellent job of showing the culture in the United States and France and the politics in the medical and scientific communities and the political posture and arena during the 1980s. He also humanized the crisis by following many of the patients from onset of medical problems to death (Enno Poersch, Gary Walsh, Frances Borchelt, Bill Kraus, and Gaetan Dugas) and by following the doctors and scientists in their fight to discover the properties of this terrible disease and conquer it. It was enlightening and helpful to have the book structured as a time line.
The amount and variety of research done for this book is astounding, requiring Shilts to conduct hundreds of interviews and read millions of pages of articles and medical material. In reading this book, my education has been enhanced and my life is more full and forever changed.
It is a great tragedy that AIDS killed Randy Shilts as it had killed so many other innocents, and that as I write this there is still no cure for AIDS. As far as I can tell, it is again being largely ignored by governments and the medical community. Where will the next Randy Shilts, Bill Kraus, and Dr. Gottlieb and the other saviors come from--and will they come soon enough?
Customer Reviews:
The AIDS Epidemic.......2007-05-10
Trace the beginning of the AIDS virus through society with this compelling account of the epidemic. You'll be shocked and horrified.
important, profound piece of journalism..........2007-02-26
I read this book in 1991 after caring for a brother who died from AIDS. When he was alive and we were together we didn't know a thing about this virus except what it was doing to our lives. About five years after his time was up a friend gave me a copy of The Band Played On. It changed my life forever. This book might be the most important, profound and historical piece of journalism written in our time. This book should be required reading for future generations. Tracing the onslaught of the virus from patient zero to Rock Hudson. Randy Shilts leaves no one unscathed in our failed immediate response to the greatest health risk of our lifetime. There's blame and accountability for everyone politicians, gay community, doctors, society but this book is not about blame and pointing fingers. It is ultimately about a society facing it's ugly little secrets and coming to grips about what seperates us is maybe not as important as what unites us. If and when we ever reach the top of the mountain and can look down at what this virus has wrought on us and we can confidently say 'never again', each man and woman will have to look at their own soul's and search inside of themselves for the answer to the following question. Did I do enough during the greatest health plague of our times to make a difference? Randy Shilts certainly has by writing the most detailed, historical look at the early days of the AIDS crisis. By reading this book I was inspired to do my share. God bless us.
magnificent and riveting.......2007-02-07
I read this as background for a thesis paper on journalism on HIV; I didn't realize quite what I was getting into with this one.
It may be the greatest non ficton books I've ever read, an utterly moving and compelling account of the epidemic and response. Shilts makes a high drama out of it; everything from the opening quote and the fonts makes the book as tragically poetic as it is informative and shocking.
Based on my work, I'd say it's also really a gold standard for journalism on HIV. He may have his personal feelings about it, but all they inspired him to do is question authority and delve deeper. He's very scrupulous about his sources and his research.
If you only ever read one book on the HIV epidemic, make it this one.
You've heard of .......2007-01-16
"The age of dinosaurs" or "the age of mammals"? Wrong. All ages have been "The Age of Microbes". And they mutate fast, and are lookin' for a home. A memorable scene in "Angels in America" is of a PWA "visited" by his ancestors who had been dispatched by fleas on rats -- or an infected water pump.
Randy, God bless his soul, did not cut his own gay community any slack. A message to take away -- You are ultimately responsible for your own health. Not your doctor, not the government, not the CDC. There are plenty of threats you cannot do anything about. Why neglect those you can?
The Best Book I Read in 2005 .......2006-07-26
And the Band Played On is an act of phenomenal research and writing, and a very frightening book on many levels because of the political wrangling, political bumbling, and political disregard for a medical crisis which cost the lives of so many, the scientific in-fighting which slowed medical break throughs and sacrificed lives, and the insanity of national agencies which were supposed to be saving lives, but which in this case knowingly risked the lives of many either because they didn't want to do the work, didn't want to spend the money, or didn't want to anger certain political groups. Gay men were deemed to be utterly dispensable by so many.
It's the sign of a good book when it brings out strong emotions. This book provoked in me anger, rage, confusion, compassion, sadness, and tears. I wish I could thank all those, like Don Francis, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, Dr. Selma Dritz, Marc Conant, Dr. Dale Lawrence, Paul Volberding, and Dr. Arye Rubenstein, who tried so hard, against such overwhelming odds, to save lives quickly. I would also chastise President Ronald Reagan and Merve Silverman and give Margaret Heckler and Bob Gallo a piece of my mind -- the skunks!
I am thankful that there are politicians like Orrin Hatch and people behind the scenes like Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones. Though he was woefully slow in responding I'm grateful for the response of C. Everett Koop and that once having made his stand he never wavered and took it to the media wherever he could.
Randy Shilts did an excellent job of showing the culture in the United States and France and the politics in the medical and scientific communities and the political posture and arena during the 1980s. He also humanized the crisis by following many of the patients from onset of medical problems to death (Enno Poersch, Gary Walsh, Frances Borchelt, Bill Kraus, and Gaetan Dugas) and by following the doctors and scientists in their fight to discover the properties of this terrible disease and conquer it. It was enlightening and helpful to have the book structured as a time line.
The amount and variety of research done for this book is astounding, requiring Shilts to conduct hundreds of interviews and read millions of pages of articles and medical material. In reading this book, my education has been enhanced and my life is more full and forever changed.
It is a great tragedy that AIDS killed Randy Shilts as it had killed so many other innocents, and that as I write this there is still no cure for AIDS. As far as I can tell, it is again being largely ignored by governments and the medical community. Where will the next Randy Shilts, Bill Kraus, and Dr. Gottlieb and the other saviors come from--and will they come soon enough?
Book Description
The Hungry Soul is a fascinating exploration of the natural and cultural act of eating. Kass brilliantly reveals how the various aspects of this phenomenon, and the customs, rituals, and taboos surrounding it, relate to universal and profound truths about the human animal and its deepest yearnings.
"Kass is a distinguished and graceful writer. . . . It is astonishing to discover how different is our world from that of the animals, even in that which most evidently betrays that we too are animals—our need and desire for food."—Roger Scruton, Times Literary Supplement
"Yum."—Miss Manners
Customer Reviews:
Painfully neurotic........2007-02-05
I have never read such a neurotic, uptight, angst-filled book as this. The author actually inveighs against the eating of ice cream in public - an expression of his "not only Talmudic view" that "eating in the street is for dogs."
Really. I couldn't make this up.
His detailed review of table manners towards the end is quite interesting, but the book is marred by a long, metaphysical, and wholly irrelevant screed against the materialist, science-driven viewpoint that supposedly dominates our culture. Most authors in the humanities just launch into their subject without apology, but Kass' long justification of Why Science Is Insufficient distracts from, and fatally mars, what might otherwise be a very reasonable (if much shorter) review of the culture of food and eating.
Curiously, the preface contains a detailed explanation of why the author was not qualified to write this book. I'm inclined to believe him on this point.
Wonderful, magical, irrational madness!.......2006-06-11
This book is a fine work of (unintentional?) self parody. Some of you are probably already familiar with a quote from this book in which Kass condemns public ice cream consumption. Some are undoubtedly tempted to guess that this quote as an aberration, a whimsical flight of fancy in which the otherwise sober Kass lets his bizarre pet peeves override his otherwise serious philosophical investigation. Not so! The Hungry Soul consists of nothing but whimsical rants in which Kass makes no distinction between personal pet peeves and universal moral law.
In some sense, one must admire Kass. He makes his blatant contempt for reason clear, and then follows through with this attitude by abandoning it entirely. Kass does not follow in the footsteps of philosophers like Hume who use rationality to probe the limits and uncover the weaknesses and self-contradictions of rationality. He simply has no truck with reason in any manner.
Thus, when Kass exhorts his readers to purge themselves of scientific, enlightenment rationality when they read his book, warning them of what a difficult task that will be, or claims that cannibalism and vegetarianism are moral equivalents, or that the reason behind the biblical prohibition on eating lobster exists is because their mode of locomotion is improper to their environment (i.e., if they walk on legs, they should be land animals and if they live in the water, they should swim like fish), the most enjoyable thing is not to think of counterarguments, nor to reel at the sheer madness of the doctor's thought, but to simply let the wondrous illogic wash over you.
For first an foremost, Kass's thought is not philosophical, nor Biblical, nor conservative (though it has elements of all of these things), but magical. The laws of magic are pre-rational psychological rules-of-thumb, used in pattern recognition, that are found, to varying degrees, in many, if not all, people: the laws of contagion, association, similarity, sympathy, similarity, and the like. It is these magical laws that underpin Kass's thought. Accepted on its own terms, and properly understood, this is a quite enjoyable book.
Just don't look to it for moral guidance.
The hungry soul.......2006-03-11
The product was in the shape you said it was and it also got here in about a week.
A feast for the spirit hungry for understanding itself .......2004-11-12
Martin Buber once wrote that in every animal function human beings are not simply as animals, but instead humanize what they do. In "The Hungry Soul' Leon Kass gives a phenomenological and philosophical basis to the thesis that in eating we can also perfect our nature. Kass is not simply one of the world's senior bioethicists, but a humanist scholar with a medical and scientific background that give his arguments a force in fact and reason. I cannot honestly say I followed the argument of this work throughout but I did understand through it how eating can become a central means of extending our own caring for, and relation to other human beings, a way then of sanctifying ourselves in the world.
I conclude with an illuminating paragraph from Kass' conclusion, a paragraph which I believe gives the true ' flavor ' of the book.
"In the higher animals., the soul energized by hunger gains hunger's satisfaction only through intermediate activities- such as smelling, hearing, seeing, chasing, attacking, capturing, biting, tasting, chewing , and swallowing- activities which themselves become new objects for the hungry soul. Increasingly capable of genuine encounters with the world, with other living forms, and ( especially in birds and mammals) with kith and kin,the souls of the hungry acquire new hungers of their own,and for more nourishment.With the rise of intelligence and especially with the extraordinary development of the upright animal, the hungry soul seeks satisfacgtion in activities animated also by wonder,ambition,affection, curiosity, and awe. We human beings delight in beauty and order, art and action, sociability and friendship, insight and understanding, song and worship. And as self-conscious beings, we especially crave self-understanding and knowledge of our place in the larger whole." pp. 228
A different kind of recipe book........2002-07-02
This book makes a strong defense of the classical principles of truth, beauty and goodness, jumping from a provoking and very unique starting point: eating. Kass is able to bring the perennial philosophy into the 20th Century, and to create a dialogue between it and modern science, as well as provide a persuasive understanding and defense of traditional ethics, etiquette, and beauty. Kass's analysis of "Babette's Feast" and his speculations on religous ritual are very thought provoking.
One must admire Kass's attempt to pull together so much of traditional philosophy (especially Aristotle) and literature, and still bring this into dialogue with contemporary science (there's reductionism there if anywhere) and culture. His scope is broad, and this book demands a lot of the reader! The argument is purposive, and analysis is difficult--there is so much there, and just about every move is key. (I found summarizing for students very difficult.) Yet Kass's arguments are very much worth considering, and bear more than one reading. To those who are patient, a vision of a very different way of looking at our whole human experience will emerge, one that I believe makes better sense of ourselves than most others offered today.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Philosophy Education Society, Inc. on December 1, 1994. The length of the article is 478 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature.(Brief Article)
Author: Laurence Berns
Publication:
The Review of Metaphysics (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1994
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc.
Volume: v48
Issue: n2
Page: p413(2)
Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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AIDS
| Disorders & Diseases
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
And the Band Played On
Deadly Feasts: The "Prion" Controversy and the Public's Health
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
The Invisible People: How the U.S. Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic, the Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time
The Emergence of Aids: The Impact on Immunology, Microbiology and Public Health
