An inspiring read that reveals past successes and ongoing challenges of public health.
A wide-ranging history of public health told through the stories of individuals who improved the lives of millions.
Williams, a public health expert with appointments at Stanford and Harvard universities, recounts example after example of public health efforts in the U.S.—the good, the bad, and the complicated. For instance, New York City’s Central Park was created to be “the lungs of the city” but at the same time destroyed a thriving Black settlement called Seneca Village. Two-thirds of the 750,000 soldiers who died in the Civil War perished from disease, not battle injuries. The Union army had better sanitation, food, and shelter, in addition to medical care, which, Williams asserts, is why they won the war. The stories are carefully placed into historical context. Germ theory, for instance, was a huge advance in medicine, but also tipped the health care balance toward focusing on individual patients rather than policies that might improve conditions for a population. The diversity of public health heroes makes for an enlightening read, as Williams spotlights Black Americans and women who had to overcome discriminatory barriers just to enter influential spaces typically populated by white men. In the 1890s, W.E.B. Du Bois documented that the living conditions of Black Philadelphians were to blame for their poor health outcomes compared with whites—rather than any supposed natural inferiority of Black people. Other featured Black men are William Jenkins, who uncovered the Tuskegee syphilis study, and former CDC director David Satcher, who encouraged condom use to prevent AIDS in the Black community, which was largely distrustful of the medical establishment. Likewise, Alice Hamilton gathered strong evidence that bad working conditions contributed to illness and deaths in Chicago factory workers. Gun violence, environmental toxins, and racial disparities also get their turn in the book, as the author unpacks social determinants of health that affect all of us. Williams emphasizes the gumption of her public health trailblazers and their commitment to strong science—shoe-leather reporting, data collection, and careful analysis that lead to effective solutions.
An inspiring read that reveals past successes and ongoing challenges of public health.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593595541
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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