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And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic Paperback – April 9, 2000
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Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly.
- Print length656 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherStonewall Inn Editions
- Publication dateApril 9, 2000
- Dimensions6 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-109780312241353
- ISBN-13978-0312241353
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Stunning . . . An impressively researched and richly detailed narrative."--Time
"Rivals in power and intensity, and in the brilliance of its reporting and writing, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood."--The Boston Globe
"A monumental history."--The Washington Post Book World
"The most thorough, comprehensive exploration of the AIDS epidemic to date . . . It is fascinating, frightening, and essential reading."--San Francisco Sentinel
"A textbook on how institutions work--or fail to work--in the face of such a threat."--San Francisco Examiner
"A lucid and stunning indictment of public policy toward the vicious disease . . . A valuable work of political history."--Business Week
"Shilts successfully weaves comprehensive investigative reporting and commercial page-turning pacing, political intrigue, and personal tragedy into a landmark book . . . Its importance cannot be overstated."--Publishers Weekly
"A popular history of the early years of the AIDS crisis, the book conveys in detail the political complexities--and many different human dimensions--of the story. Reading Shilts, you wonder who will die next. You worry whether this terrible disease can ever be controlled. And you begin to feel anger at what Shilts portrays as the federal government's dithering . . . Shilts has produced the best--and what will likely be the most controversial--book yet on AIDS. Though many of the details in the book are familiar to veteran reporters, Shilts does not shy away from naming names and casting blame. He writes with passionate conviction, which is one of the book's strengths--and also, of course, a sound reason for some skepticism."--Jim Miller, Newsweek
"Shilts, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle who has covered AIDS full-time since 1983, takes us almost day by day through the first five years of the unfolding epidemic and the responses--confusion and fear, denial and lindifference, courage and determination. It is at once a history and a passionate indictment."--H. Jack Geiger, The New York Times Book Review
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Product details
- ASIN : 0312241356
- Publisher : Stonewall Inn Editions; First Edition (April 9, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 656 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780312241353
- ISBN-13 : 978-0312241353
- Item Weight : 1.3 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,203,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #389 in AIDS (Books)
- #6,674 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies
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Throughout the book there's a palpable tension between the medical and political arenas as they grapple with (or attempt to ignore) the disease. Anyone who agitates to cut government spending by getting rid of or sharply reducing the powers of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) should be required to read this book. Although there are a number of heroes among the characters, the CDC--with its intelligence, tenacity, and compassion--heads the list. At the beginning, it seemed that a handful of CDC scientists were the only people who cared, and they were among the very few that sensed the illness was likely to become an epidemic. To essentially foresee the future--but to not be able to convince others of the reality--must have been nightmarish.
The story successfully blends a number of elements: competitive jealousies within the scientific community (it's likely that the French actually discovered the AIDS virus, despite a neck-in-neck US researcher who claimed the glory), the politics of the slow-moving National Institutes of Health (NIH), Reagan's stubborn refusal to address the AIDS issue (he finally did so six years after the epidemic began--and after 20,850 citizens had died), and a number of incredibly touching stories of people with the disease. One thing I hadn't known was the schism within the gay community: some people recognizing the reality of the threat while others (understandably) discounted it as internalized homophobia or as a homophobic attempt at sexual repression.
Ultimately--when all the medical and political wrangling is stripped away--the book is about people facing AIDS during a time when it was a horrible death sentence. In reading this account, one can't help but have compassion for all patients everywhere whose end of life includes ostracism, derision, and shaming. Yet, despite the dire circumstances, there was also love and compassion. Selfless nurses volunteered to work the AIDS unit, even when the disease was still somewhat of a mystery. The Shanti Project was a grassroots effort that cared for the sick and the dying by providing housing, medical care, friendship, and emotional support. This book captures a period in time where, in the midst of sometimes slow-moving science, second-class-citizen politics, and a seemingly indifferent larger society, some dedicated people struggled to raise awareness, to change habits, and others, to face death with equanimity.
The response of the blood banks to the mounting evidence that they were spreading the epidemic to innocent victims, was nothing short of criminal. That none of their officers or people responsible of maintaining a wait-an-see policy was ever indicted of negligent homicide is proof that if you have money, you can pay your way out of anything. Shame on the Red Cross, shame.
This book also shows that heroes are not always vindicated and rewarded when everything is said and done. The actions of the UC system against those that went outside "the proper channels" to get AIDS funding to fight this scourge, should have been exposed. The pettiness of the board of regents to push out and deny tenure to those that had helped spearhead the fight goes to show that in the most liberal state in the nation, there are plenty of recalcitrant idiots in power that need to be pushed out, else people will continue to suffer.
The book also shows that some in the gay community decided to ignore all the warning signs of impeding doom, and selfishly decided that continuing to live their lives as always, even after they had been diagnosed, shows the selfishness of many during this crisis. The bath owners, using their political clout, pushing to maintain the status quo knowing full well what they were doing was also nothing short of criminal.
Surprising was to see the response from New York city, its mayor, and the state governor, to the epidemic. They did absolutely nothing until things were out of control. Disgraceful.
Kudos to those in the gay community that fought even against their own to bring the epidemic out of the shadows and into the limelight. The sacrifices that many made to help those afflicted, providing economic and emotional support to those that were dying was very touching. This minority of members of the gay community, a few members of academia, a handful of government employees, and also a few in the medical field, whom fought tooth and nail to get funding and make everybody aware that AIDS was not a gay issue, but a human issue are the real heroes of the story.
The biggest takeaway from this book is that we are not ready for the next pandemic. We do not have a strategy to fight these diseases wherever they come from. It is not a matter of if but when, 'cause nature will strike again and if we act the same way that most did during the initial AIDS epidemic, this time around the number of victims may be in the hundreds of millions. I can only imagine the bickering between NIH, NCI, HHS, CDC and others as to who should get credit, or who should be fighting to save lives, while people die in droves, and all that while Congress sets up hearings to see who they can blame, so they can score political points.
Fantastic book, eye-opening, and sad, very sad.
Top reviews from other countries
This book gives background info on how money and politics fuelled that fiasco.
Randy Shirts schafft es, die Anfänge der AIDS-Epidemie beeindruckend zu schildern, einen Einblick in die gerade am Anfang besonders betroffene Gay Community zu gewähren und das Versagen der Politik zu entlarven. Das Buch ist nicht nur hervorragend recherchiert und zeichnet die Abläufe der Epidemie umfangreich nach. Da das Buch in unzählige kurze Abschnitte aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven gegliedert ist, nimmt man auch unmittelbar Anteil an den Schicksalen vieler früher Opfer der Epidemie. Eine klare Leseempfehlung.






