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Reviews tagging 'Violence'
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts
2 reviews
usually_sleep_deprived's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
fawns's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
5.0
After watching Pose on Netflix I picked up And The Band Played On to learn more about the AIDS crisis. I was too young to know what was going on when it first started and have continued to know very little. A huge personal oversight.
This book was an excellent read. It is comprehensive and obviously meticulously researched when it comes to the epidemiology and financial aspects of AIDS. I had no idea of the parallels that could be drawn between the way AIDS was handled by the US and Reagan and the way Covid was handled by Trump. Handled in that it was allowed to run rampant with little intervention to protect people by the federal government.
My criticism is that the author focused very little of his writing on how AIDS affected communities of color in the '80s, focusing instead on the white community.
It also would have been instructive to be able to learn more about the front-line activists that did the vast majority of the work to make changes in policy and safety.
Overall, if willing to make the time investment (it's a little over 600 pages), this is a well-done public health history book to read and learn from.
This book was an excellent read. It is comprehensive and obviously meticulously researched when it comes to the epidemiology and financial aspects of AIDS. I had no idea of the parallels that could be drawn between the way AIDS was handled by the US and Reagan and the way Covid was handled by Trump. Handled in that it was allowed to run rampant with little intervention to protect people by the federal government.
My criticism is that the author focused very little of his writing on how AIDS affected communities of color in the '80s, focusing instead on the white community.
It also would have been instructive to be able to learn more about the front-line activists that did the vast majority of the work to make changes in policy and safety.
Overall, if willing to make the time investment (it's a little over 600 pages), this is a well-done public health history book to read and learn from.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Homophobia, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, and Medical content