Harvard University Press - MEDICAL

Birthing a Slave

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Birthing a Slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations in the antebellum South, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers--in very different ways and for entirely different reasons. This is the first book to focus exclusively on the health care of enslaved women, and it argues convincingly for the critical role of reproductive medicine in the slave system of antebellum America.
Paperback October 2009

Culturing Life

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Hannah Landecker
How did cells make the journey from their origin in living bodies to something that can be grown and manipulated on artificial media in the laboratory? This is the question at the heart of Hannah Landecker's book. She shows how cell culture changed the way we think about such central questions of the human condition as individuality, hybridity, and even immortality and asks what it means that we can remove cells from the spatial constraints of the body and "harness them to human intention."
Paperback October 2009

Death Investigation in America

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Jeffrey M. Jentzen
Why is the American system of death investigation so inconsistent and inadequate? In this unique political and cultural history, Jeffrey Jentzen draws on archives, interviews, and his own career as a medical examiner to look at the way that a long-standing professional and political rivalry controls public medical knowledge and public health.
Hardcover October 2009

The Lives of the Brain

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

John S. Allen
Though we have other distinguishing characteristics (walking on two legs, for instance, and relative hairlessness), the brain and the behavior it produces are what truly set us apart from the other apes and primates. And how this three-pound organ composed of water, fat, and protein turned a mammal species into the dominant animal on earth today is the story John S. Allen seeks to tell.
Hardcover October 2009

The Monkey and the Inkpot

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Carla Nappi
This is the story of a Chinese doctor, his book, and the creatures that danced within its pages. The Monkey and the Inkpot introduces natural history in sixteenth-century China through the iconic Bencao gangmu (Systematic materia medica) of Li Shizhen (1518–1593). In the first book-length study in English of Li’s text, Carla Nappi reveals a “cabinet of curiosities” of gems, beasts, and oddities whose author was devoted to using natural history to guide the application of natural and artificial objects as medical drugs.
Hardcover October 2009

The Case against Perfection

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Michael J. Sandel
Genetic breakthroughs present us with a promise but also with a predicament: is it wrong to re-engineer our nature? Sandel explores this and other moral quandaries surrounding the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. He concludes that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery that fails to appreciate human achievements.
Paperback September 2009

How Fat Works

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Philip A. Wood
How Fat Works is a concise and up-to-date primer on the workings of fat. It is essential reading for professionals entering careers in medicine and public health administration or anyone wanting a better understanding of one of our most urgent health crises.
Paperback September 2009

Addiction: A Disorder of Choice

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Gene M. Heyman
In a book sure to inspire controversy, Gene Heyman argues that conventional wisdom about addiction—that it is a disease, a compulsion beyond conscious control—is wrong. At the heart of Heyman’s analysis is a startling view of choice and motivation that applies to all choices, not just the choice to use drugs. Heyman’s analysis of well-established but frequently ignored research leads to unexpected insights into how we make choices—from obesity to McMansionization—all rooted in our deep-seated tendency to consume too much of whatever we like best.
Hardcover June 2009

Healing Spaces

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Esther M. Sternberg
If the distractions and distortions around you, the jarring colors and sounds, could shake up the healing chemistry of your mind, might your surroundings also have the power to heal you? This is the question Esther Sternberg explores in Healing Spaces, a look at the marvelously rich nexus of mind and body, perception and place. The book shows how a Disney theme park or a Frank Gehry concert hall, a labyrinth or a garden can trigger or reduce stress, induce anxiety or instill peace.
Hardcover May 2009

Interrogations, Forced Feedings, and the Role of Health Professionals

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Ryan Goodman
Mindy Jane Roseman
The involvement of health professionals in human rights and humanitarian law violations has again become a live issue as a consequence of the U.S. prosecution of conflicts with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq. In this volume, a wide range of prominent practitioners and scholars explore these issues. Their insights provide significant potential for reforming institutions to assist health professionals maintain their legal and ethical obligations in times of national crisis.
Paperback May 2009

Access

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Laura Frost
Michael R. Reich
Foreword by Tadataka Yamada
Many people in developing countries lack access to health technologies, even basic ones. Why do these problems in access persist? What can be done to improve access to good health technologies, especially for poor people in poor countries? This book answers those questions by developing a comprehensive analytical framework for access and examining six case studies to explain why some health technologies achieved more access than others.
Paperback March 2009

A Line Drawn in the Sand

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Phyllis J. Kanki
Richard G. Marlink
A Line Drawn in the Sand captures the determination of several African nations, including Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania, in providing lifesaving antiretroviral therapies to their citizens. By emphasizing the dramatic results that investments in AIDS treatments in Africa can bring, the book provides lessons to nations about scaling up their own treatment responses, hope to individuals and communities confronted with the often devastating impact of AIDS, and inspiration to the international HIV/AIDS community.
Paperback March 2009

Medicating Children

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

Rick Mayes
Catherine Bagwell
Jennifer Erkulwater
Mayes and his coauthors argue that a unique alignment of social and economic trends and incentives converged in the early 1990s with greater scientific knowledge to make ADHD the most prevalent pediatric mental disorder. This book is unique in that it integrates analyses of the clinical, political, historical, educational, social, economic, and legal aspects of ADHD and stimulant pharmacotherapy.
Hardcover January 2009

The Accidental Mind

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

David J. Linden
A guide to the strange and often illogical world of neural function, this book shows how the brain is not an optimized, general-purpose problem-solving machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad-hoc solutions that have been piled on through millions of years of evolutionary history.
Paperback December 2008

Hysterical Men

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EST

Mark S. Micale
Over the course of several centuries, Western masculinity has successfully established itself as the voice of reason, knowledge, and sanity—the basis for patriarchal rule—in the face of massive testimony to the contrary. This book boldly challenges this triumphant vision of the stable and secure male by examining the central role played by modern science and medicine in constructing and sustaining it.
Hardcover November 2008