African AIDS, in the West, is often associated with media images of skeletal, forlorn-looking and dying Africans inviting the sympathy of the viewer or reader. Associated with these images are often motleys of subtly hidden narratives - poverty, promiscuity, failed leadership, impending Armageddon, and lately the greed and heartlessness of Western drugs companies who are harangued for prioritising profits over African lives. But how do Africans themselves see AIDS? What do they believe causes the disease? How do those affected by the undeniable epidemic really live with it? And how has the...

The development of modern medicine is on a very steep trajectory upward--a rise that began only about a hundred years ago. This rise is certainly quantitative, but it is accompanied by qualitative changes in the way we understand and deliver healthcare. This book begins with a look at three recognized periods of medical development--from 1900 until World War II, from the war until about 1980, and the period since 1980.

While the common response is to celebrate these developments, this book suggests that perhaps we should also be wary, especially of the qualitative changes. Since World War...