The Politics of Healing
Histories of Alternative Medicine in Twentieth-Century North America
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:30th Dec '03
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£37.99(9780415933391)
From grocery store to doctor's office, alternative medicine is everywhere. A recent survey found that more than two in five Americans uses some form of alternative medicine. The Politics of Healing brings together top scholars in the fields of American history, history of medicine, anthropology, sociology, and politics to counter the view that alternative medical therapies fell into disrepute in the decades after physicians established their institutional authority during the Progressive Era. From homeopathy to Navajo healing, this volume explores a variety of alternative therapies and political movements that have set the terms of debate over North American healing methods.
"A fascinating introduction to a multifaceted and complexly negotiated reality that is so often obscured under the not terribly illuminating label of complementary and alternative medicine. Indispensable for any student of North American health care and its twentieth-century development
." -- Charles E. Rosenberg, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, is the author of Explaining Epidemics, The Care of Strangers
"This collection of essays offers both wide-ranging and elegant analyses of alternative medicine in the United States. From anti-vaccination and anti-fluoridation to alternative cancer care and health foods, the exceptional scholars represented in this volume set a new standard for historical reflections on the political cultures of medicine and healing in twentieth-century America. The book will be essential to anyone--policymakers, insurers, historians, regular physicians, alternative practitioners, and patients-- interested in the histories of alternative medicine and why, in the 1990s, complementary and alternative medicine transformed the health landscape. Historian Robert D. Johnston has performed a magisterial act of scholarship in bringing new light and provocative observation to the complex issues in healing in modern America
." -- Susan E. Lederer is the author of Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America Before the Second World War
"This openness to nuance and complexity makes this volume an essential reference work for anyone interest in understanding more clearly why more than 40 percent of adult Americans now use at least one form of alternative medicine." -- The Journal of American History
This collection of essays is remarkably even in both quality and perspective...Even though alternative medicines encompass a strong leftist countercultural component, the essays in this volume poignantly demonstrate the many instances in which alternative medicides have forged connections with oppositional subcultures on the political or cultural right.. This openness to nuance and complexity makes this volume an essential reference work for anyone interest in understanding more clearly why more than 40 percent of adult Americans now use at least one form of Alternative medicine.
-The Journal of American History
ISBN: 9780415933384
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 900g
398 pages