The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of CancerSelected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer. 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. 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. |
Contents
Of blacke cholor without boyling | 9 |
An Impatient War | 105 |
Will you turn me out if I cant get better? | 191 |
Prevention Is the Cure | 235 |
A Distorted Version of Our Normal Selves | 335 |
The Fruits of Long Endeavors | 393 |
Atossas War | 461 |
Acknowledgments | 471 |
Glossary | 533 |
Photograph Credits | 543 |
An Interview with Siddhartha Mukherjee | 573 |
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Common terms and phrases
American biology blood body bone marrow Boston breast cancer called cancer cells Cancer Institute Cancer Research carcinogens Carla cause cell division cellular chemical chemotherapy chromosome cigarette cure death decade discovery doctors doses drug Druker Dryja early estrogen forms of cancer Frei Freireich Genentech genes genetic genome Gleevec growth Halsted Halsted's Herceptin Hodgkin's disease hospital human cancer Ibid illness interview with author Jimmy Jimmy Fund Journal kinase laboratory Laskerites lung cancer malignant mammography Mary Lasker mastectomy medicine metastatic molecular molecules mutations National Cancer needed normal cells oncogene oncologist oncology organism pathways patients prostate protein radiation radical regimen relapsed remission retinoblastoma Rous Rous sarcoma virus sarcoma Science scientific scientists screening Sidney Farber Slamon smoking surgeon surgery surgical survival tamoxifen targeted Temin therapy tion tobacco transplant treated treatment University Press virus viruses wards Weinberg women wrote X-rays York