Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, 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 … 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.
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A great summary of the history of cancer treatment. Accurate, clear, scientifically correct and well written! I highly recommend it!
History of cancer knowledge over history. Describes how treatment has evolved
No other book like this on Cancer. Historical and technical details, all you wish to know.
One of the best cancer books on the market.
If you want to know the history of cancer treatment and where future developments are potentially being made, this is a must read.
Although it’s written in a way that treats a cancer diagnosis like a being, it explains the cancer in a way that reassures the reader.
Technical, but explained in a manner …
This book caught my eye at an airport bookstore, but I waited until i was home and could check it out of the library before reading it. Initially, it was a bit of a slow go and I had a hard time getting into it. I put it down for a week or so and when I picked it up again it was with a renewed enthusiasm for what was both a hopeful and depressing …
Excellent information.