The World Health Organization between North and South

[Chorev's] two lines of argument structure a well-executed and illuminating history of the WHO and key global health issues such as tobacco control, primary care, health systems strengthening and access to essential medicines. It should be especially widely read in global health governance, which needs more work like this.

-- Scott L. Greer * Political Studies Review *

Chorev does a thorough job of discussing the political, social, and economic factors that moved global culture from principles of equity (the importance of health to social development) to a more market-oriented and technological focus in the 1980s, with the rise of more international organizations, private foundations, and principles of cost effectiveness, with health seen as good for economic growth and productivity.

* Choice *

Nitsan Chorev provides an in-depth exploration of the institution and its secretariat during two phases where there was great political pressure on the delivery of the WHO's mandate: the pursuit of health for all. Chorev’s use of archival research presents the WHO as a living, breathing organism, which has individuals with beliefs of their own and agendas that they pursue, sometimes in conflict with the interests driving states’ engagement in the institution.

-- Sara Davies * International Affairs *

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been the subject of considerable angst over the past two decades.. Chorev's book is timely, in this context, offering new insights into the complex, sometimes obscure, politics engaged in by an international organization with roots in the nineteenth century but at the frontline of contemporary efforts to transition into global governance in the early twenty-first century.

-- Kelley Lee * The Review of International Organizations *

In her latest book, Nitsan Chorev weaves a fascinating and compelling narrative in describing the evolution of policy making at the World Health Organization WHO during the late 20th century..... [T]his book will be required reading for students of international organizations, global inequality, and macrocomparative approaches to health and development. Chorev's study offers an important examination into world-level processes that are ignored, or only briefly alluded to, in other research. As such, her book will change the way scholars view international organizations and the role that they perform in constructing policy and shaping the global development agenda.

* American Journal of Sociolo