“One of the world’s leading physician-anthropologists presents a passionate argument against the inequalities of healthcare.”
"Paul Farmer is a superb physician, a penetrating anthropologist, and a prophet of social justice. He combines an unflinching moral stance—that the poor deserve health care just as much as the rich do—with scientific expertise and boundless dedication. He has saved the lives of countless destitute patients in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, and he has shown that effective health services, even complex medical regimens, can be put in place in impoverished communities. . . . Farmer’s moral philosophy, anthropological insights, and medical successes are described in his trenchant and timely new book, Pathologies of Power."
“He challenges us to do better, and it would take a remarkably cynical or self-interested reader not to embrace his vision of human rights and social justice in which “public health and access to medical care are social and economic rights” on equal par with civil rights. Most important of all, he provides hope in the form of a very simple and easy to read moral compass, so that amidst the novel challenges and frustrations of health provision and analysis, one can begin to discern for herself a clear course of action.”
“It’s crucial that we confront the link Farmer reveals between social inequality and disease.”
“Thoughtful and provocative.”
“This emotional book is an appeal for a struggle for equity in the field of health and human rights.”
“Farmer presents compelling evidence of how ‘the most basic right -- the right to survive -- is trampled in an age of great affluence’ . . .”
“Do not read Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power, now available in an updated paperback version, unless you want to be challenged. . . . It is a well-written medical anthropology [that] will challenge how you think about medical care.”
“Farmer writes as a passionate advocate for global social justice. He makes a compelling case for the proposition that civil rights cannot be effectively defended if social and economic rights are not. As such, it is a significant contribution to the literature on public health. I would also recommend this book to physician readers in general, understanding that although they will find the case studies interesting, many may be annoyed by Farmer’s political stance. Health and human rights advocates will find in it a rich vein of material to support their efforts.”
“Paul Farmer presents a disturbingly simple argument in this comprehensive and compelling analysis of the intersection between structural poverty and human health.”
“In vivid case studies taken from both North and South, Farmer shares with us his experiences with the violation of human rights. The case studies may be depressing, but overall they convey a message of optimism.”
“This is neither a gloomy nor an overly accusatory book, but rather an optimistic one.”
"This is an angry and a hopeful book, and, like everything Dr. Farmer has written, it has both passion and authority. Pathologies of Power is an eloquent plea for a working definition of human rights that would not neglect the most basic rights of all: food, shelter and health. This plea has special potency because it comes from Dr. Farmer, a person who has proven that the dream of universal and comprehensive human rights is possible, and who has brought food, shelter, health, and hope to some of the poorest people on this earth."—Tracy Kidder, author of The Soul of a New Machine and Home Town
"Farmer's brilliance and charisma leap from the pages of his book. He challenges us to face the urgent theoretical and political challenges of the twenty-first century by linking structural violence to embodied social suffering and in the process calls for a new definition of human rights. Once this book is out, we will no longer be able to remain complacently--or rather, complicitly--on the sidelines."—Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
"A passionate critique of conventional biomedical ethics by one of the world's leading physician-anthropologists and public intellectuals. Farmer's on-the-ground analysis of the relentless march of the AIDS epidemic and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis among the imprisoned and the sick-poor of the world illuminates the pathologies of a world economy that has lost its soul."—Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil
"In his compelling book, Farmer captures the central dilemma of our times—the increasing disparities of health and well-being within and among societies. While all member countries of the United Nations denounce the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by those who torture, murder, or imprison without due process, the insidious violations of human rights due to structural violence involving the denial of economic opportunity, decent housing, or access to health care and education are commonly ignored. Pathologies of Power makes a powerful case that our very humanity is threatened by our collective failure to end these abuses."—Robert S. Lawrence, President of Physicians for Human Rights and Edyth Schoenrich Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
"Farmer has given us that most rare of books: one that opens both our minds and hearts. It stands as a model of engaged scholarship and an urgent call for social scientists to forsake their cushy disregard for human rights at home and abroad."—Loïc Wacquant, author of Prisons of Poverty
"Paul Farmer is an original: a powerful writer, an insightful theorist, and a human rights activist on behalf of the health needs of some of the poorest and most excluded people on the planet. Pathologies of Power brings together all his strengths, as a thinker and an activist. Every health worker, human rights teacher, and government official who seeks to improve the health status and life chances of their fellow human beings simply must read this book."—Michael Ignatieff, author of Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry
"Paul Farmer is a great doctor with massive experience working against the hardest of diseases in the most adverse circumstances, and at the same time he is a proficient and insightful anthropologist. Farmer’s knowledge of maladies such as AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis, which he fights on behalf of his indigent patients, is hard to match. But what is particularly relevant in appreciating the contribution of this powerful book is that Farmer is a visionary analyst who looks beyond the details of fragmentary explanations to seek an integrated understanding of a complex reality."—Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, Economics
