''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 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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