An international bestseller and winner of the Stonewall Book Award, which inspired an award-winning film 'A heroic work of journalism on what must rank as one of the foremost catastrophes of modern history.' The New York Times 'Stunning ... An impressively researched and richly detailed narrative.' TIME Randy Shilts was the first openly gay journalist dealing with gay issues for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1981, the year when AIDS came to international attention, he quickly devoted himself to reporting on the developing ...
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An international bestseller and winner of the Stonewall Book Award, which inspired an award-winning film 'A heroic work of journalism on what must rank as one of the foremost catastrophes of modern history.' The New York Times 'Stunning ... An impressively researched and richly detailed narrative.' TIME Randy Shilts was the first openly gay journalist dealing with gay issues for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1981, the year when AIDS came to international attention, he quickly devoted himself to reporting on the developing epidemic, one which devastated his community and eventually took his life as well. Shilts interviewed over 1,000 people, weaving together extensive research in the form of personal stories and political reportage. He was perfectly placed to understand the cultural, medical and political impact of the disease on the gay community and United States society as a whole. And the Band Played On exposes why AIDS was allowed to spread while the medical and political authorities ignored and even denied the threat. This book remains one of the great works of contemporary journalism and provides the foundation for continuing debates over governmental failure in handling lethal epidemics.
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Add this copy of And the Band Played on: Politics, People, and the AIDS to cart. $24.96, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2007 by St. Martin's Griffin.
I saw the movie years ago, and wanted to read the book. As I was reading it, the Covid-19 epidemic became an issue, and they had the same problems they had with AIDS. Nobody understood where it came from, how it spread or how to treat it. However, with AIDS, it mostly spread in gay men, so nobody really cared for the first several years, until it was found in the general blood pool, and then it became an issue, however, it was too late. As I read it, I could see the similarities of both Covid and AIDS, and how ignorance, failure to listen and follow simple safety rules, failure to listen to medical doctors trying to explain how this disease is different then any that have been dealt with in the past, lead to the exposure of millions when it didn't have to.
If you are writing a paper on epidemics, and they can be stopped, or made worse, this is a good book for you to see how some tried to stop it, and how others did nothing to prevent it.
