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THE APOTHECARY'S WIFE

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MEDICINE AND HOW IT BECAME A COMMODITY

A lively medical, scientific, and economic history.

The profit in healing.

Scholar of literature, gender studies, and medical humanities, Gevirtz brings a breadth of knowledge to her witty, deeply researched history of the commodification of health care and medicine. Drawing on abundant archival sources, including letters, diaries, herbals, sermons, advertisements, medical tracts, and a prolific number of recipe books, Gevirtz reveals that until the mid-17th century, ill people were treated at home with medications made in kitchens by a family member or friend. Recipes for elixirs, poultices, salves, and libations appeared in the same books as recipes for soups and stews and were handed down from woman to woman. The advent of the scientific revolution, however, wrested the production and administration of medicine from women. Physicians and apothecaries, which became “defined professions with guild status,” competed for control of diagnosing illness and prescribing, making, and selling medications, united only in their determination to exclude women. What was once free was transformed into a product with monetary value; what was once freely shared was produced in secret factories. Even recipe books changed to contain apothecaries’ or physicians’ recipes, for which women sometimes had to pay. By the mid-18th century, women’s housekeeping, gardening, and cookery books “had little or nothing to say about women’s role as medicine makers.” In recounting a century of tumultuous change, Gevirtz introduces a host of idiosyncratic characters: a man who concocted and fed viper wine to his wife; a naturalist eager to dissect a dead elephant delivered to his front lawn; a bold, self-promoting “medicatrix” trained by her physician father. All participated in the “shift in values [that] compromised medication’s identity as a fundamental right of all human beings.” As Gevirtz’s well-populated narrative amply shows, seeking profits from treating ailing patients did not begin with big pharma.

A lively medical, scientific, and economic history.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024

ISBN: 9780520409910

Page Count: 340

Publisher: Univ. of California

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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107 DAYS

A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.

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An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.

Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”

A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025

ISBN: 9781668211656

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025

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