And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic - Softcover

Shilts, Randy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014011369X ISBN 13: 9780140113693

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1988

Synopsis

An examination of the AIDS crisis exposes the federal government for its inaction, health authorities for their greed, and scientists for their desire for prestige in the face of the AIDS pandemic

About this title

Review:

In the first major book on AIDS, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts examines the making of an epidemic. Shilts researched and reported the book exhaustively, chronicling almost day-by-day the first five years of AIDS. His work is critical of the medical and scientific communities' initial response and particularly harsh on the Reagan Administration, who he claims cut funding, ignored calls for action and deliberately misled Congress. Shilts doesn't stop there, wondering why more people in the gay community, the mass media and the country at large didn't stand up in anger more quickly. The AIDS pandemic is one of the most striking developments of the late 20th century and this is the definitive story of its beginnings.

About the Author:

RANDY SHILTS was one of the first journalists to recognize AIDS as an important national issue and, in the early 1980s, he began to report on AIDS full time for the San Francisco Chronicle, making him the only journalist to do so. He was also the author of The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk and Conduct Unbecoming: Gay and Lesbians in the U.S. Military. Shilts died of AIDS-related complications in early 1994.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 014011369X
• ISBN 13: 9780140113693
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 672