Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.49 AVERAGE
4.49 AVERAGE
Profound. A long read but well worth it. (5 stars but reduced because of vilification of Gaetan Dugas)
Quite simply the best nonfiction book I have ever read. Full of heroes, villains, tragedy, hope, and struggle.
I'll have to come back later and write a review. It's an amazing book, heartbreaking, frustrating, infuriating, and true. Hard to read at times without wanting to scream, and I did cry at times. Definitely should be read.
informative
sad
medium-paced
I found this book fascinating, frustrating, and confusing. I'm not crafting this carefully, most of what I'm throwing up is a brainstorm, so fair warning. First, I was in HS from '86-'90 and AIDS (along with the constant threat of nuclear war) was at the top of scary things my young brain had to deal with about the world. I've not thought about it in a long time, but after reading "The Great Believers" I craved an understanding of what was going on during the 1980's with regard to AIDS. I'm thankful to have the historical setting this book provides. It's an interesting read with 2020 now part of our collective history - and the historical constant: the more things change, the more they're the same. Public health politicized - it's nothing new. Imagine in the current context reading Anthony Fauci's name! He's in here and he does good and he makes mistakes, like a person. I'm reminded of how hateful towards gays the world was back in the Reagan-era. And today, the hateful rhetoric and political speech ("groomers" and all that bunk) are on the rise again. I was a bit surprised at Rock Hudson's celebrity being the turning point in public awareness - are we still so superficial? careless? Maybe - probably. Shilts writes well. This book moves and flows - it's not high art, but it's easy to understand once you can get the characters aligned and then, for a non-scientific person like me, get some control over this ailment or that. I leave it wanting to check the data - did AIDS deaths eventually meet those projections repeated in the book? Where are those news sources now - then the NYT and Washington Post were so conservative and they still are, so I wonder where the cutting edge lies now. Somewhere online, but where? "AIDSpeak" presages so much now, too. We don't want to hurt feelings so we can't get to the root of the issue - until a C Everett Coop comes in and blows it all up. Again, this is a mess, but just a flash of impressions. I'm very glad to have read this book.
I can't believe it took me 33 years after this was published to read it. This is a magisterial reconstruction and deconstruction of the early years of the AIDS crisis. The good , the bad and the ugly are all well covered, with the last taking precedence. This incredible, horrible train wreck of fear, prejudice, denial, criminal negligence from every corner, political malfeasance and research chicanery amidst a multitude of heroes as well is a soul shattering journey! A necessary book - solid 5 stars!
This book had been sitting on my shelves for years before I finally read it. I remember reading a review back on LibraryThing, where someone described as one of the best pieces of non-fiction they had ever read. Since it was about a period and a subject I knew little about but was curious to learn more, I got a copy. But then, it just never was the right time. I actually picked it up every so often but never managed to read more than the first couple of pages. This time, however, it was different.
Originally, this was supposed to be my new "nightstand book", the book I would read a few passages in before going to bed. That has been a working strategy for books I really want to read but which require a bit more discipline than reading other books do. But in the end, it turned out I didn't need it. Soon I was fighting with myself whether to take this book with me on my way out or the novel I was "actually reading" (come on, everybody does this, right?). Because, as depressing a book as this turned out to be, it was also incredibly hard to put down.
I was born in 1982, so I didn't know what AIDS was until the early nineties, I suppose. I didn't know much about what it had been like when AIDS first broke out. I knew it hadn't been handled well, and I knew about the prejudice attached to it, both because of the disease itself and because of the gay victims of the disease. Still, reading this was a bit of a shock. Like it says in the book: "It had never crossed Ric Walsh's mind that politics might have something to do with medicine. Now he knew better."
This book gives a detailed account on what happened in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Its focus is very much on the U.S. - Europe gets mentioned a few times, especially France, but it hardly ever talks about Africa, which seems odd considering where AIDS originated and where it's most devastating today. But Shilts' concern are the mechanics behind the actions - and inactions - of the people and institutions that you'd expect to stop an outbreak of an epidemic as horrible as AIDS is.
Sure, some of it may be the great 20/20 hindsight, but it becomes obvious that a lot of warnings simply were never heeded and calls for help remained unanswered, not only because of homophobia (which is a terrible reason, obviously, but sadly the kind of reason I expected when starting to read this), but often also because of something ridiculous like power struggles and other silly pissing contests.
There were a lot of moments where I just wanted to travel back in time and scream because of my anger and frustration. For that, it wasn't an easy book to read. Shilts interweaves the tales of politics with those of people, the people suffering and dying from AIDS. All of their tales were incredibly touching. Together with the stories of the other people who actually did something, and that in the face of so much adversity, it really is true that this is, like Shilts writes in the prologue, "ultimately, a tale of courage as well as cowardice, compassion as well as bigotry, inspiration as well as venality, and redemption as well as despair."
Shilts also writes that "it is a tale that bears telling, so that it will never happen again, to any people, anywhere." Sadly, however, in many respects not much seems to have changed. Simply considering how little attention AIDS is getting these days, apart from the once-a-year-World-AIDS-Day, gives me the chills. I also think that no matter what the conflict, a lot of people, politicians especially, will think of power first and human lives second.
So this is still an important book to read, and a well-written and readable one. Even despite the many different places and people involved, Shilts mostly manages to keep things straight for the reader. One thing I also found very effective was the death count he placed in various places. It's a chronological account, and as the numbers get higher it's more and more difficult to believe that so little was being done.
I've read a few books with darker subject matter, but all books had one thing in common: that while there are bad people, there are also good people. And that's the important thing to remember, and to try and be one of the good people, too, if at all possible.
Originally, this was supposed to be my new "nightstand book", the book I would read a few passages in before going to bed. That has been a working strategy for books I really want to read but which require a bit more discipline than reading other books do. But in the end, it turned out I didn't need it. Soon I was fighting with myself whether to take this book with me on my way out or the novel I was "actually reading" (come on, everybody does this, right?). Because, as depressing a book as this turned out to be, it was also incredibly hard to put down.
I was born in 1982, so I didn't know what AIDS was until the early nineties, I suppose. I didn't know much about what it had been like when AIDS first broke out. I knew it hadn't been handled well, and I knew about the prejudice attached to it, both because of the disease itself and because of the gay victims of the disease. Still, reading this was a bit of a shock. Like it says in the book: "It had never crossed Ric Walsh's mind that politics might have something to do with medicine. Now he knew better."
This book gives a detailed account on what happened in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Its focus is very much on the U.S. - Europe gets mentioned a few times, especially France, but it hardly ever talks about Africa, which seems odd considering where AIDS originated and where it's most devastating today. But Shilts' concern are the mechanics behind the actions - and inactions - of the people and institutions that you'd expect to stop an outbreak of an epidemic as horrible as AIDS is.
Sure, some of it may be the great 20/20 hindsight, but it becomes obvious that a lot of warnings simply were never heeded and calls for help remained unanswered, not only because of homophobia (which is a terrible reason, obviously, but sadly the kind of reason I expected when starting to read this), but often also because of something ridiculous like power struggles and other silly pissing contests.
There were a lot of moments where I just wanted to travel back in time and scream because of my anger and frustration. For that, it wasn't an easy book to read. Shilts interweaves the tales of politics with those of people, the people suffering and dying from AIDS. All of their tales were incredibly touching. Together with the stories of the other people who actually did something, and that in the face of so much adversity, it really is true that this is, like Shilts writes in the prologue, "ultimately, a tale of courage as well as cowardice, compassion as well as bigotry, inspiration as well as venality, and redemption as well as despair."
Shilts also writes that "it is a tale that bears telling, so that it will never happen again, to any people, anywhere." Sadly, however, in many respects not much seems to have changed. Simply considering how little attention AIDS is getting these days, apart from the once-a-year-World-AIDS-Day, gives me the chills. I also think that no matter what the conflict, a lot of people, politicians especially, will think of power first and human lives second.
So this is still an important book to read, and a well-written and readable one. Even despite the many different places and people involved, Shilts mostly manages to keep things straight for the reader. One thing I also found very effective was the death count he placed in various places. It's a chronological account, and as the numbers get higher it's more and more difficult to believe that so little was being done.
I've read a few books with darker subject matter, but all books had one thing in common: that while there are bad people, there are also good people. And that's the important thing to remember, and to try and be one of the good people, too, if at all possible.
Excruciating. Why did I read this during a global pandemic? I'm a dumbass. I'm glad to have this information but I haven't been this angry reading a book for a long, long time.
If you want an education on disease prevention, healthcare, the government and politics, this is the book for you. This book was fascinating and interesting to read, while at the same time making me both sad and angry. While our struggle with AIDS has come a long way since the early days in the 80s, there are approximately 1.1 million people in the US and 35 million people worldwide suffering from HIV/AIDS. As of 2012, 36 million people have died worldwide. This, like so many other diseases, is preventable. This more things change, the more they stay the same. That's not a good thing.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced