Inflamed

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A doctor and an economist explore the hidden links between health and structural injustices, and set out a radical vision for a fairer world

Inflamed
journeys across the human body - through our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems - illuminating the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. This boldly original book shows how inflammation is connected not just to the food that we eat and the air that we breathe, but is also linked to the traumatic events we experience, the stories we tell, and the arts of diagnosis that physicians practice - and fail to practice - every day.

Combining the latest scholarship on globalization and biology with the stories of patients in marginalized communities and the science of Indigenous groups, Inflamed points the way toward a deep medicine that has the potential to heal not only our bodies but the world.

© Rupa Marya, Raj Patel 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

  • A work of exhilarating scope and relevance to this infected moment in the body politic. Inflamed mixes medicine, argument, and metaphor into a post-pandemic poultice: reading it is the first step in the deep medicine it prescribes. What a rare and powerful experience to feel a book in your very body.

    author of On Fire
  • Provocative and thought provoking. . . a reckoning with modern medicine . . . At each physiological juncture, the co-authors relate the malfunctions of human biology to the inadequacies of our political and economic systems

    GQ
  • A compelling book on the social and environmental roots of our poor health… the writers combine their respective expertise to analyse the workings of these cells and organs, and to interrogate how they have been disrupted by our modern constructs of capitalism, colonialism, extractivism and individualism, amongst others

    Irish Times
  • Urgent, impeccably researched . . . a subversive political analysis . . . remarkably lucid

    Guardian
  • A remarkably powerful analysis . . . compelling detail . . . a revolutionary book that calls for courageous action to dismantle those structures that harm the health of people and the planet and to rebuild ones that centre care

    The Lancet
  • At last! A book about medicine and healthcare that is holistic in the broadest sense in that it integrates histories of colonialism, conflict and inequality with alternative forms of knowledge. And all that while remaining compellingly readable and engaging.

    author of Jungle Nama and Gun Island

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