Aids in the Twenty-First Century

Drugs into Bodies: Global AIDS treatment activism, by Raymond A. Smith and Patricia D. Siplon. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. xiv + 196 pp. £24.65 (hardback). ISBN 0-27598-325-0. As AIDS in the Twenty-first Century clearly outlines, AIDS is a major global problem with impacts and outcomes that are still unpredictable. Despite the seemingly increased concern about AIDS, especially with regard to sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to counter its devastation have not led to a halt in the epidemic, nor is it certain if the disease has reached its epidemiological peak. In such a light, it is no luxury to have more analytical and empirical studies, and more books that bring the findings of such studies to a broad public of academics, policy makers, and practitioners. Neither of these books looks specifically at AIDS in Africa, but both are relevant to discussions. The first edition of AIDS in the Twenty-first Century, published in 2002, was well received and, as the authors recognize in their acknowledgment to this second and revised edition, filled a gap in the existing literature. Barnett and Whiteside give an accessible overview of the social, economic, and cultural factors that influence AIDS, taking into account the impacts of the epidemic on micro, meso and macro levels. In a fluent and often passionate narrative, the authors provide epidemiological explanation, socio-economic information, and broad historical overviews of the epidemic and of Africa's susceptibility and vulnerability to it. Their mastery of the material is most evident in their identification of gaps and contradictions in existing knowledge, and in their proposals on how to approach the epidemic differently.

Art · Development economics · Economics · Globalization · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing) · Epidemiology · History · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses · Law · Medicine

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