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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Extraordinary work covering the history of cancer and treatments. Astonishing, vast, moving….
Note – audiobook review
I’ve been working in the field of biomedical cancer research for over 20 years, and this book was still eye opening and informative for me! Graduate education, at least during my time as a student, focused on the latest developments in the field without a look back through the lens of history. This book fills that gap …
Educational overview of the history, politics and complexities of cancers. This author’s subsequent book, The Gene builds upon and carries this excellent exposition forward. Both are worth the time they take.
I loved this book. I thought the author did an amazing job writing about such a difficult topic. The historical aspects of cancer therapies are fascinating. Still too much to be done, but this book really helps put things into perspective.
I learned how much medicine has changed over the years, and his writing style is wonderful. His medical insights were wonderful too.
As with his other books, Mr. Muckerjee can take a highly complex, very esoteric topic and make it both clear to us lay people and entertaining.
Riveting, chilling, and detailed history of cancer research. Long but definitely worth the time. Excellent review of not only the science but of the personalities and politics that impede or move research forward.
Extraordinary history of cancer and its treatments
Almost too much information about the history of cancer treatment from antiquity to the present. Fascinating.
Very informative account about cancer origin and history of various treatment approaches and political movement regarding public awareness for this diseases. Definitely not a light read but this will keep you hooked if you like cancer biology and its history.
Made cancer understandable. Excellent writing. Human concern throughout.
The best book on the cancer for most people.
This is an amazing history of Cancer. It is super interesting and informative. Quite fascinating too. The stories keeps the interest going – some unbelievable, others inspiring and some simply harrowing. Some parts are hard to follow if you are not in the medical field but you can still get through them. You will learn everything in regards to …
A great book to understand the difficulties in solving the mystery of cancer. The history of the brutal methods used to confront the disease was compelling as well.
One of my top 5
This is the book all children with older parents, family members with older adults and spouses must read. Wake up, learn about an aging human body and take responsibility for your decisions!
I read this book while undergoing chemotherapy. It helped me to understand, to appreciate and to overcome the challenges of that treatment. But you do not need to have cancer to find the search for treatments for this malady fascinating.
Incredibly interesting account of our ongoing attempts to defeat Cancer.
I may be a bit biased because this is my chosen field, but this book told an incredible story of cancer; indeed, the subtitle is well chosen. I think this book is probably accessible to the layperson (although, again, as I am not one I can’t say for certain), but it is told as a wonderful narrative of the fight against cancer and cancer’s natural …
My only quibble with the book is the author’s tendency — shared by so many who do not HAVE cancer but only treat it — to talk about cancer, at the end, as now being like a “chronic” illness. Maybe it is from the POV of those who treat it, as compared to how it was several decades ago, when most cancer patients died pretty quickly and there was …