The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Book cover; shows a crab in the center of the page, with the title above and the subtitle and author beneath

Cover of The Emperor of All Maladies
Author Siddhartha Mukherjee
Country United States
Language English
Subject Cancer
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Scribner
Publication date
 16 November 2010
Pages 592
ISBN 978-1-4391-0795-9

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is a book written by Siddhartha Mukherjee, an Indian-born American physician and oncologist. Published on 16 November 2010 by Scribner, it won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction: the jury called it "an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal".[1][2][3]

Content

The book weaves together Mukherjee's experiences as a hematology/oncology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as the history of cancer treatment and research.[3][4] Mukherjee gives the history of cancer from its first identification 4,600 years ago by the Egyptian physician Imhotep. The Greeks had no understanding of cells, but they were familiar with hydraulics, so they used hydraulic metaphors, of humors, which were fluids whose proper balance, they believed, produced health and sickness. According to the book, cancer existed in silence in history until 440 before the Common Era, where the Greek historian Herodotus records the story of Atossa the queen of Persia and the daughter of Cyrus, who noticed a lump in her breast. The tumor was excised by her Greek slave named Demasitis, where the procedure is believed to be successful at least temporarily.

In the 19th century, surgical approaches were developed to deal with tumors. William Halsted developed an aggressive, disfiguring breast surgery as a strategy for removing not only existing cancer cells but also places to which they might have spread.

Leukemia, a cancer of blood cells, was first observed by Rudolph Virchow, and Franz Ernst Christian Neumann localized the pathology to the bone marrow. Leukemia cells are dependent on the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase. Sidney Farber used molecules developed by Yellapragada Subbarow to block the enzyme and destroy the leukemia cells, producing a temporary remission in the disease.

The book proceeds right on through to the latest research and therapies.

According to Mukherjee, the book was a response to the demand of a patient: "I’m willing to go on fighting, but I need to know what it is that I’m battling."[5] Mukherjee states that two of his influences for the book were Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On and Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but the defining moment for him was "when he conceived of his book as a biography".[5]

It was described, by the magazine TIME, as one of the 100 most influential books of the last 100 years,[6] and by The New York Times magazine as among the 100 best works of non-fiction.[7]

Awards and honours

Mention of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction 2011 on the cover of The Emperor of All Maladies.

Translations

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Pulitzer Prizes. "The 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners General Nonfiction". Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  2. ↑ "Indian doc's book on cancer wins Pulitzer Prize". Times of India. Boston. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
  3. 1 2 "An Oncologist Writes 'A Biography Of Cancer'". Fresh Air from WHYY. NPR. 17 November 2010. Retrieved 1 August 2011.
  4. ↑ Okie, Susan (28 November 2010). "Review: "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer," by Siddhartha Mukherjee". Denver Post. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
  5. 1 2 McGrath, Charles (8 November 2010). "How Cancer Acquired Its Own Biographer". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
  6. ↑ http://entertainment.time.com/2011/08/30/all-time-100-best-nonfiction-books/slide/the-emperor-of-all-maladies-by-siddhartha-mukherjee/
  7. ↑ http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/as-if-you-dont-have-enough-to-read/
  8. ↑ Joanna Bourke (10 October 2011). "2011 Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist". The Lancet. Retrieved 30 September 2012.

External links

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