Natural History
"Paul Farmer is a superb physician, a penetrating anthropologist, and a prophet of social justice. He combines an unflinching moral stance—that the poor deserve health care just as much as the rich do—with scientific expertise and boundless dedication. He has saved the lives of countless destitute patients in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, and he has shown that effective health services, even complex medical regimens, can be put in place in impoverished communities. . . . Farmer’s moral philosophy, anthropological insights, and medical successes are described in his trenchant and timely new book, Pathologies of Power."
American Scientist
Thoughtful and provocative.
The Globe And Mail
This is Farmer’s cri de coeur that those things not be forgotten in the quest for human rights.
The Boston Globe
Pathologies of Power is a cry for those whose own shouts go unheard. It is a bitter dose of medicine doled out on behalf of the nameless, faceless millions who have no medicines of their own.
Psychiatric Services Journal
Farmer presents compelling evidence of how ‘the most basic right — the right to survive — is trampled in an age of great affluence’ . . .
Utne Reader
It’s crucial that we confront the link Farmer reveals between social inequality and disease.
British Medical Journal
This emotional book is an appeal for a struggle for equity in the field of health and human rights.
Family Medicine
Do not read Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power, now available in an updated paperback version, unless you want to be challenged. . . . It is a well-written medical anthropology [that] will challenge how you think about medical care.
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly
Paul Farmer presents a disturbingly simple argument in this comprehensive and compelling analysis of the intersection between structural poverty and human health.
CHOICE
This is neither a gloomy nor an overly accusatory book, but rather an optimistic one.
Development Policy Review
In vivid case studies taken from both North and South, Farmer shares with us his experiences with the violation of human rights. The case studies may be depressing, but overall they convey a message of optimism.
The Ecologist
One of the world’s leading physician-anthropologists presents a passionate argument against the inequalities of healthcare.
Journal of Medical Humanities
He challenges us to do better, and it would take a remarkably cynical or self-interested reader not to embrace his vision of human rights and social justice in which “public health and access to medical care are social and economic rights” on equal par with civil rights. Most important of all, he provides hope in the form of a very simple and easy to read moral compass, so that amidst the novel challenges and frustrations of health provision and analysis, one can begin to discern for herself a clear course of action.
Journal Of Nervous & Mental Disease
Farmer writes as a passionate advocate for global social justice. He makes a compelling case for the proposition that civil rights cannot be effectively defended if social and economic rights are not. As such, it is a significant contribution to the literature on public health. I would also recommend this book to physician readers in general, understanding that although they will find the case studies interesting, many may be annoyed by Farmer’s political stance. Health and human rights advocates will find in it a rich vein of material to support their efforts.
New England Journal Of Medicine
There are many kinds of gifted physicians: clinicians, researchers, and those who build institutions. Paul Farmer is the rarest of all: a prophet. . . . Pathologies of Power is a profound work; it deserves the widest possible audience.
The Lancet
Farmer gives voice to the unheard poor around the world and challenges medical professionals to broaden the vision of medicine to include human rights.
From the Publisher
"Through his engaging and passionate style, Farmer gives voice to the unheard poor around the world and challenges medical professionals to broaden the vision of medicine to include human rights." ---The Lancet
Natural History
"Paul Farmer is a superb physician, a penetrating anthropologist, and a prophet of social justice. He combines an unflinching moral stance—that the poor deserve health care just as much as the rich do—with scientific expertise and boundless dedication. He has saved the lives of countless destitute patients in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, and he has shown that effective health services, even complex medical regimens, can be put in place in impoverished communities. . . . Farmer’s moral philosophy, anthropological insights, and medical successes are described in his trenchant and timely new book, Pathologies of Power."
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"Through his engaging and passionate style, Farmer gives voice to the unheard poor around the world and challenges medical professionals to broaden the vision of medicine to include human rights." —The Lancet
