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Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History Paperback – January 5, 2005
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Print length318 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherJHUP
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Publication dateJanuary 5, 2005
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Reading age18 years and up
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Dimensions6.25 x 0.72 x 9.5 inches
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ISBN-100801880645
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ISBN-13978-0801880643
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A well-written, accessible account of the history of breast cancer from ancient times to today... Olson simultaneously presents a history of breast cancer, culture, and science. His multi-layered analysis of the history of breast cancer is most striking when he demonstrates the differing attitudes toward therapy that American and European medical practitioners hold; and how the development of medicine in different areas of the globe affects the way breast cancer is treated... Overall, Olson's book is a satisfying examination of the history of breast cancer. It would be a welcome addition to a course dedicated to the history of medicine, the history of women in medicine, or gender history."
(Karol K. Weaver H-Women, H-Net Reviews)"An engaging historical survey of the interplay between the science of breast cancer and the wider culture of which it is a part."
(Richard Horton Times Literary Supplement)"An engrossing history... This book is definitely a thought-provoking read and reminds us that some diseases and their physical and emotional trauma transcend time."
(Sharon DeBartolo Carmack Family Tree Magazine)"An invaluable aid to those breast cancer survivors with an interest in taking the long view of their illness... Today's cancer research offers plenty of hope to all those courageous people on the journey initiated by their diagnosis, and Bathsheba's Breast is an important traveling companion whose most promising chapters have yet to be written."
(Nick Owchar Los Angeles Times)"Historian James S. Olson provides us with an extremely interesting and often terrifying history of breast cancer through the ages... An excellent, moving and informative read."
(CancerFutures)" In elegant, captivating prose, Bathsheba's Breast brings to life dramatic tales to illustrate the history of breast cancer treatment... The historical detail and absorbing storytelling appeal equally to scholarly and general audiences."
(Paula Viterbo History: Reviews of New Books)"James Olson's compelling book suggests that breast cancer is one of history's oldest diseases. From Queen Atossa of Persia, daughter of Cyrus, consort of Darius, mother of Xerxes, to Dr. Jerri Nielsen, isolated from medical help in Antarctica, who self-diagnosed and self-treated her cancer, he tells stories of the sufferers, their doctors and their treatments... It is impossible to read this book without being moved―by pity, horror, awe and respect at the suffering of ordinary women whose normal lives were cut short by abnormal malignancy; by anger at the longevity of some of the barbaric treatments and the dismissive arrogance of mutilating surgeons; but finally by hope that molecular biology, genetic counselling, and pharmaceutical innovation will produce if not a cure, then techniques to transform the disease from an acute killer into a treatable, chronic malaise."
(Tilli Tansey History Today)"James S. Olson has taken on the task of recounting the entire history of breast cancer―from Queen Atossa, who lived in Babylon in 490 B.C., to Dr. Jerri Nielsen, who was trapped in Antarctica in 1999―and has done it in a concise, attractive, enjoyable book."
(Susan Lester New England Journal of Medicine)"Provides a fascinating view of the ways in which culture, politics, and science interact... A lucid account of an ongoing war on a changing battlefield with at least the hope of new weapons."
(Kirkus Reviews)"Provides a most readable survey contrasting past and present options for breast cancer treatment."
(Library Bookwatch)Book Description
The stories of women throughout the ages who have confronted breast cancer, from ancient times to the present.
About the Author
James S. Olson is Distinguished Professor and Chair of the history department at Sam Houston State University. He is co-author (with Randy Roberts) of both Winning Is the Only Thing: Sports in America since 1945, available from Johns Hopkins, and John Wayne: American.
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Product details
- Publisher : JHUP; Revised ed. edition (January 5, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 318 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0801880645
- ISBN-13 : 978-0801880643
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 0.72 x 9.5 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#849,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #510 in Breast Cancer (Books)
- #666 in Oncology (Books)
- #1,287 in History of Medicine (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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As a cancer survivor I found this a riveting read !
And I do mean political. Although Olson takes specific case-- Annie of Austria, Nancy Reagan, and antarctica scientist Julia Nielson to name a few--what he shows in this book is the public's attitude and depth (or lack thereof) of knowledge vis a vis breast cancer in each case.
The strength of this book is the focus on how politics, cultural trends, and gender pay a large part in how the US has funded and treated cancer. One of the most interesting threads that exemplifies this is how the book traces the rise and fall of the radical mastectomy, the Halstead procedure (where not only breast, but chest muscle and sometimes even shoulder bones were amputated).
Heralded as one of the only procedures to truly show clinical results in an era awash with quack remedies, in Europe it lost favor much earlier than in the United States once physicians realized the mutilation was unnecessary and women with lumpectomies and radiotherapy had similar 5 year survival figures.
It's quite scary to think about the thousands and thousands of women who underwent this procedure. As a breast cancer survivor who has undergone the lumpectomy myself, I am grateful to the activists mentioned in this book (including notables such as Dr. Susan Love and Rose Kushner) who were lone voices in a male-dominated medical and medical policy culture making decisions about women's bodies.
Olson doesn't spend as much time as I would have liked on the current state of cancer research, focusing just a bit on Tamoxifen and the BRCA genes without going too much into the genetic strides breast cancer researchers have gone in putting together clinical trials involving different genetic make up of tumors reacting to different chemotherapy cocktails.
And as a survivor, it is sometimes disheartening to read the statistics sprinkled throughout the book that show that not much changed in terms of mortality or disease free life expectancy for most of the 1900's.
But the book itself is readable, informative, and definitely makes one a bit irritated at how politics has influenced breast cancer treatment. I can only give a sigh of relief there are more female surgeons, oncologists, and researchers today.
I particularly appreciate his appropriately savage treatment of the hucksters and charlatans that have swirled around breast cancer patients (and all patients, regardless of the type of disease, whose survival is uncertain), and I enjoyed the survey of prior theories about what caused breast cancer and some of the sillier ancient treatments.
There are also a few moments that are somewhat painful. He outlines a murder-suicide, for example, and describes surgeries from before the invention of anesthesia. It's hard to face the fact that some parts of the women's movement were either so anti-male or so ignorant of medical science as to claim that if breast cancer happened to men, it would have been cured already.
In fact, if you compare cancers by either the number of lives lost or the age at which people die, breast cancer receives a disproportionately high share of resources. There are basic subjects, such as cancer-related fatigue, for which all or nearly all of the research is conducted exclusively in women with breast cancer--creating obvious problems, if you're a man with any form of cancer, or a woman with some other form of cancer (90% of women with cancer DO NOT have breast cancer).
Although he doesn't emphasize this point, this book helps identify the trends and events that resulted in 5% of cancer patients--the women with breast cancer--getting far more than 5% of the research, attention, treatment, or support.

