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nancyadelman 's review for:
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by Randy Shilts
This is a book about AIDS and how the virus came to be realized in the late 1970's in a small African country, and then spread unchecked by the gay community in North America. The author recounts how early medical opinions differed on the various causes, and included being a case of bad drugs, or that the disease was transmitted by sperm. Not semen, but sperm. This book is really about the gay community coming to the realization that they are in real trouble with a virus that seems to be coming after them, the doctors that tried to science their way to the right answers, and the politicians that stood in the way.
The author, Randy Shilts, really outdid himself in terms of researching and checking his material for this book. I mean, he was able to recreate early political manuveurings and meetings for dozens of characters and get them all put in a semblance of chronological order. This book is really a must-read for anyone interested in epidemiology or AIDS or both. I found this book incredibly fascinating even though I ultimately could not finish it. The chapters are mercifully short and broken down into smaller pieces about who was doing what and when. There's a nice mix of medical, politics and science all stirred in together in each chapter usually. It's not written in a super-complicated fashion but it is very densely packed information, if that makes sense. It took me about ten days to read about 178 pages. In the end, I had to put this book down because it was just taking up too much time to read and was really kind of an information overload. It is a good book though. I may try reading it in its entirety at another time.
The author, Randy Shilts, really outdid himself in terms of researching and checking his material for this book. I mean, he was able to recreate early political manuveurings and meetings for dozens of characters and get them all put in a semblance of chronological order. This book is really a must-read for anyone interested in epidemiology or AIDS or both. I found this book incredibly fascinating even though I ultimately could not finish it. The chapters are mercifully short and broken down into smaller pieces about who was doing what and when. There's a nice mix of medical, politics and science all stirred in together in each chapter usually. It's not written in a super-complicated fashion but it is very densely packed information, if that makes sense. It took me about ten days to read about 178 pages. In the end, I had to put this book down because it was just taking up too much time to read and was really kind of an information overload. It is a good book though. I may try reading it in its entirety at another time.