Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"In his compelling book, Farmer captures the central dilemma of our times - the increasing disparities of health and well-being within and among societies. While all member countries of the United Nations denounce the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by those who torture, murder, or imprison without due process, the insidious violations of human rights due to structural violence involving the denial of economic opportunity, decent housing, or access to health care and education are commonly ignored. Pathologies of Power makes a powerful case that our very humanity is threatened by our collective failure to end these abuses." - Robert S. Lawrence, President of Physicians for Human Rights and Edyth Schoenrich Professor of Preventive Medicine at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University "This is an angry and a hopeful book, and, like everything Dr. Farmer has written, it has both passion and authority. Pathologies of Power is an eloquent plea for a working definition of human rights that would not neglect the most basic rights of all: food, shelter, and health. This plea has special potency because it comes from Dr. Farmer, a person who has proven that the dream of universal and comprehensive human rights is possible, and who has brought food, shelter, health, and hope to some of the poorest people on this earth." - Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer"
Table of ContentsForeword by Amartya Sen
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I. BEARING WITNESS
1. On Suffering and Structural Violence
Social and Economic Rights in the Global Era
2. Pestilence and Restraint
Guantánamo, AIDS, and the Logic of Quarantine
3. Lessons from Chiapas
4. A Plague on All Our Houses?
Resurgent Tuberculosis inside Russia’s Prisons
PART II. ONE PHYSICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
5. Health, Healing, and Social Justice
Insights from Liberation Theology
6. Listening for Prophetic Voices
A Critique of Market-Based Medicine
7. Cruel and Unusual
Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis as Punishment
8. New Malaise
Medical Ethics and Social Rights in the Global Era
9. Rethinking Health and Human Rights
Time for a Paradigm Shift
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Credits
Index
