Books : And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.196979200973
EAN: 9780312241353
ISBN: 0312241356
Label: Stonewall Inn Editions
Manufacturer: Stonewall Inn Editions
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 656
Publication Date: April 09, 2000
Publisher: Stonewall Inn Editions
Sales Rank: 110424
Studio: Stonewall Inn Editions
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these questions, Shilts weaves weaves the disparate threads into a coherent story, pinning down every evasion and contradiction at the highest levels of the medical, political, and media establishments.
Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly.
Amazon.com 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.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I have watched this DVD more times than I can count. Now am reading the book, makes you really think about. What else have we been persuaded to look the other way about? There seems to be an awful lot of cover ups that go on in our government, CDC and the drug industry.
E Teal
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a must read. you will not be able to put it down. It is constantly unfolding before you. It will make you stop for moments of reflection while you ponder how we could have all been so stupid. PLEASE READ!
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I have just gone back and re-read this book for the second time. I was very aware of the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS crisis around the time they began calling it the Gay disease when the first newspaper articles were written. I am a straight public health nurse beginning to work on teen suicide at that time but it was clear from the beginning that this disease was terrible and that politicians were cowardly in facing this crisis from the very beginning. I keep this book on my treasured book shelf so I will never forget how bad things can get in this country. Lately, though, you don't need a book to remind you!
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Even though I've been fortunate to never have had AIDS touch my life, this book still brought home a powerhouse of feelings - shame at seeing how poorly so many of our fellow human beings were treated, anger at the way their suffering was treated as insignificant, grief at how many people have been lost to such an insidious disease and outrage at the way our government - and governmental health agencies - were willing to play politics when peoples lives were at stake.
Randy Shilts creates a moving, troubling narrative that gives "And the Band Played On" more of the feeling of a novel than of a report or documentation of a study. You get to know the people he writes about enough to care about them - and about what happens to them.
In more recent years, there have been some questions raised about his identification of Gaeton Dugas as "Patient Zero," with current thinking that it took a number of different people to bring AIDS to the western world and begin spreading here. Obviously, this is a point that will likely never be entirely resolved, but even if you disagree with Shilts theory, the rest of the book is still very informative and well worth reading.
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I've just received it and only just started reading it. So far I agree with all the other reviewers that this is an extraordinary and landmark piece of investigative journalism. Looking back, in 2007, on the history of the epidemic it very moving to see the earliest medical struggles to identify the disease, the bizarre historical melding of the triumph of conservatism in politics and the emergence of the 'gay disease' in the early 1980s. Given the subsequent explosion of the disease in the developing world way beyond the confines of the NY and San Francisco urban gay scenes, it is humbling and horrifying to revisit the first awakening of humanity to the enormity of the pandemic. You don't even have to be much interested in the illness or the gay liberation movement to be astounded by the story.
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