AIDS: Today, Tomorrow : An Introduction to the Hiv Epidemic in America [Paperback]

Robert Searles Walker (Author)

Book Description

Since its publication in 1991, Robert Walker's book has become the standard student text on AIDS - for courses dealing with both social issues and natural disasters or epidemics. This completely revised second edition is updated through the Spring of 1994 and includes data released at that time. With a broad-based introduction, utilising a wide-range of sources in a unified and manageable way, Walker uses the virus itself, its characteristics, and our perception of it, as the foundation for his analysis. The character of the epidemic is seen as a function of the virus, thus his examination integrates politics, economics, avoidance issues, and scientific research with the biology of HIV.The topics include discussions of linguistic usages and metaphors applied to AIDS and their consequent policy significance; the impact of the epidemic on those professional groups engaged in researching cures and treatments; a historical-epidemiological comparison of the bubonic plague and the AIDS epidemic; the policy implications deriving from the nature of HIV itself; behaviour impact on individuals seeking to avoid AIDS; avoidance strategy and risk assessment; economic and political impacts; and a conjectural view of the future through the prism of the current epidemic.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; 2nd edition
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0391038591
• ISBN-13: 978-0391038592
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,769,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Robert Searles Walker was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1930, and travelled widely in his first three to four years. Michigan, New York, Texas, and finally California - a cosmopolitan begining. His pre-college education includes well-known private schools such as Barton School in Topanga Canyon, and the Army & Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California as well as a host of public schools at various levels. At the collegiate level (through to the Ph.D.) he is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, and since conferment of that degree has taught as full or part-time faculty at the University of Michigan, UCLA, Oklahoma State University, retiring from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas in 1990. He was Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Trinity for fifteen years. Dr. Walker's principal field is constitutional law and history, but his interests and publications range widely. His study of the English and American development of the Writ of Habeas Corpus has become a standard in the field, having been cited as authority by Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been referred to repeatedly in cases invovling current disputes over U.S. detentions and habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay prison. In addition he has published a major college text on the AIDS epidemic, a study of the repeal of State Constitutional Prohibition in Oklahoma in 1960, and, most recently, a book of poetry entitled "Like Mother, Like Son." Similarly, his interest in community affairs involve many areas of concern - for example, he was the founding president of the SouthWest PreLaw Association (SWAPLA) as well as a worker and, ultimately, Board Chairman of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation (SAAF). In 1990, he left active involvement to write "AIDS: Today, Tomorrow." In 1956 he and Joyce L. Peck were married and produced two beautiful daughters, Karen and Catherine, the latter of which has, in turn, giving birth to two beautiful grandchildren, Elise and Bob. They find their grandfather a bit grumpy, but loveable in spite of it.