"With the rare blend of a reporter's nose for a story and a scholar's fastidiousness, Stobbe chronicles the past century and a half of Surgeons General. The result is a stimulating perspective on the history of American public health."
"Invaluable to scholars and highly engaging for general audiences. . . . Stobbe’s research and portraits of the men and women who have held the post of Surgeon General are remarkable in their vividness and insights."
"Stobbe has written an interesting and informative book useful to both scholars and general readers. He captures well the political challenges that those working at high levels on public health issues are likely to face."
"If the surgeon general is the trusted voice on health—'the nation's doctor'—how can he be unknown to a roomful of physicians and other medical professionals? Journalist Mike Stobbe provides the answer in Surgeon General's Warning."
"The Surgeon General’s Warning is an impressively detailed, eminently readable account of the creation, strengthening, and gradual decline of the office of surgeon general. . . . A journalist by trade, Stobbe’s narrative is not only based on impressive research but is also very entertaining to read. He effectively brings history to life by recounting the personalities and biographical details of past surgeons general and their contributions to public health in the US. . . . Stobbe can lay claim to having written perhaps the definitive history of the subject."
"Mike Stobbe's history of the U.S. surgeon general is more than a grand tour of American medicine. It is a thoughtful and engaging analysis of what the surgeons general did and do while pursuing the not-always-so-straight line of advancing the public's health."—Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, Director at the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, and Editor-in-Chief of The Milbank Quarterly
"Surgeon General's Warning is a fascinating, thoroughly researched historical tour of the political battlefields of U.S. public health. We watch successive surgeons general lead noble charges—or beat cowardly retreats—in struggles to marshal indifferent, embarrassed, or corrupt administrations against plagues ranging from venereal disease to tobacco and from AIDS to obesity."—Arthur Allen, author, Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
"Well researched, engagingly written."—Jill Center, Senior Health Policy Analyst
