Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS,
this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The
New Yorker)--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.
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.
