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Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History
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About This Book
A true life medical thriller . . . If what we want in this moment is insight from this brilliant doctor about pandemics, he wants us to see that they do not occur in isolation. --Carolyn Kellogg, The Boston Globe In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand--Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa's chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not - and the region's health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.
Reviews
"Only Paul Farmer, I think, in his ability to write so knowledgeably and with such love and hope for all of humanity, could coax me to read 526 pages of text about a viral outbreak during a viral pandemic."
"Farmer's book would be valuable reading at any time, but it's even more so in our pandemic times."
"A challenging, consequential, and tragically timely book about the forces that sculpt epidemics and the necessity of compassion and altruism in caring for their victims."
"Anyone who comes to this book with an open mind will find it hard to dispute his premise."
"Blending medical history and anthropology, this book brings newfound awareness to the interconnectedness of West Africa, Europe, and the United States throughout the centuries as each region navigates global health challenges, and shows how the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues to affect the social underpinnings of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea today ..."
"The narrative is supplemented by a deep exploration of the war-torn, strife-filled and tragic history of the region, which the Western world robbed of millions of men, women and children during the centuries of the slave trade — and continues exploiting for its diamonds, palm oil and rubber ..."
"lacks the media hysteria common at the time but manages to be even more disturbing ..."
"incisive and deeply informed ..."
"To really remedy what has happened to West Africa will not be cured by training more nurses or, as he does so well, telling the stories of Ebola survivors."
"If indeed Pasteur said the line, the reference to "the terrain" was an allusion to the 'terrain' of the human body, and to the immune system in particular."
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