And the Band Played on: Politics, People, And the AIDS Epidemic - Hardcover

Shilts, Randy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312009941 ISBN 13: 9780312009946

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1987

Synopsis

This investigation of the first five years of the AIDS epidemic examines the roles of the federal government, public health authorities, and research scientists in identifying the disease and acting to contain it

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0312009941
• ISBN 13: 9780312009946
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 630