The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Simon and Schuster, Nov 16, 2010 - History - 592 pages

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.

Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave may have cut off her diseased breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease.

Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - pbjwelch - LibraryThing

Intense and very detailed. A good balance of carefully explained science and personal stories. Definitely makes one reflect on how one would react personally to a diagnosis of cancer. Not for the ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - bness2 - LibraryThing

If you want to read one book about cancer this is a great choice. The author is a good writer and the information is up to date. Cancer remains one of our biggest challenges, and this book shows why ...

About the author

Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, and The Laws of Medicine. He is the editor of Best Science Writing 2013. Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and Cell. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters. Visit his website at: SiddharthaMukherjee.com

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
• Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2010
• ISBN: 1439181713, 9781439181713
• Length: 592 pages
• Subjects: History / Civilization; Medical / History; Social Science / General