Review by Choice Review
Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds examines the most recent pre-COVID epidemic that threatened to engulf the world--the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2013--14--looking at it from the perspectives of medical humanities and the social history of medicine. The first part of the book reads as medical travelogue, recounting Farmer's experiences treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. The second part of the book is effectively an introductory African history textbook, exploring the long histories of economic exploitation, colonial and postcolonial violence, and global structural inequalities that positioned West African countries to combat the spread of Ebola so disadvantageously and--more important for Farmer--to care for patients suffering from this agonizing but ultimately treatable disease. The final two chapters return to the present to ruminate on lessons learned (or not) from the Ebola epidemic, and an epilogue addresses the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is clearly meant for an audience that has very little previous knowledge of Ebola, global public health, or West African history. Those unfamiliar with this history will find the book interesting; advanced scholars will find it takes the long way around to its core subject, to say the least. Almost 100 pages of bibliographical references stand in for a formal bibliography. Summing Up: Optional. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals; general readers. --Matthew M. Heaton, Virginia Tech
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
In Albert Camus's The Plague, the protagonist, a doctor, ultimately decides "the only means of righting a plague" is "common decency." Renowned physician and global health expert Farmer echoes that conclusion in his report on the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. Farmer provides poignant personal accounts by Ebola survivors and health-care workers, a detailed history of the three Ebola-affected countries, and coverage of post-Ebola life, including the complications of the viral infection. Acts of caregiving and funerals were the chief sources of acquiring this contagion during the epidemic. Farmer's writing can be distressing with nightmarish scenes involving repulsive sights and smells. He criticizes the international health bureaucracy's policy of "control-over-care," where containment of the illness is prioritized over actually treating the disease. Farmer explains why Ebola hammered these three West African countries, citing already impoverished health-care systems, violence, and poverty. Previous colonial rule and slave trade, armed conflicts, exploitation of the natural resources of poor nations, victim-blaming, and health disparities all connect with the Ebola outbreak. A challenging, consequential, and tragically timely book about the forces that sculpt epidemics and the necessity of compassion and altruism in caring for their victims.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Medical anthropologist Farmer (coauthor, Reimagining Global Health), cofounder of the international health-care organization Partners in Health, delivers an incisive and deeply informed account of the Ebola outbreak ("the largest in recorded history") that engulfed West Africa in 2014. Placing the epidemic within the historical context of the transatlantic slave trade, European colonial rule, and more recent "diamond-fueled" civil wars, Farmer argues that the disastrous "control-over-care paradigm" used to combat Ebola had its roots in centuries of exploitation and neglect. He rejects explanations blaming the outbreak on "exotic practices and beliefs held to be common in this part of the world," and characterizes Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the three countries most severely afflicted, as "clinical deserts" where it was rational for people to be suspicious of authorities whose clear priority was to contain the disease rather than to provide adequate patient care (the mortality rate in some treatment centers was 50%). Farmer's detailed synthesis of the history behind the crisis enlightens, but poignant profiles of victims, survivors, and physicians, including Dr. Humarr Khan, Sierra Leone's "Ebola czar" who died from the illness, are the book's greatest strength. This fierce and finely wrought chronicle offers essential perspective on fighting epidemics. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In his latest work, Farmer (cofounder, chief strategist, Partners in Health; Harvard Medical Sch.; Reimagining Global Health) focuses on Ebola but also has relevant lessons for life during COVID-19. Blending medical history and anthropology, this book brings newfound awareness to the interconnectedness of West Africa, Europe, and the United States throughout the centuries as each region navigates global health challenges, and shows how the 2014--16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues to affect the social underpinnings of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea today. The book spans three sections: an overview of Ebola and its appearance in West Africa, a history of West Africa and why it is a clinical desert, and a section on understanding how viruses work and what it takes to stop the spread. Throughout, readers are immersed in Farmer's own recollections of his time working in West Africa and will be moved by the interwoven recollections of Ebola survivors along with the stories of those who died from the disease. VERDICT Recommended to all interested in a moving, impassioned overview of the economic and social forces of colonialism and racism that have directly impacted public health historically, during the 2014 Ebola epidemic, and today, during the COVID-19 pandemic.--Rachel M. Minkin, Michigan State Univ. Libs., East Lansing
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
This story of the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak by an expert lacks the media hysteria common at the time but manages to be even more disturbing. Farmer, the chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard and founding director of Partners in Health, has spent his life delivering medical care to undeveloped nations--and writing engagingly about his experiences. In his latest, the author describes the epidemic that likely killed many more people than officially reported. Readers will be surprised to learn that, despite lurid accounts such as Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, Ebola is not a death sentence. Treatment involves routine hospital care, especially the replacement of lost fluids intravenously. Deaths were rare in victims evacuated to Europe or America but more than 50% in Africa. Farmer reserves special ire for international organizations proclaiming that simply treating individuals would never defeat the epidemic. Aggressive control measures, including quarantine, contact tracing, and sanitation upgrades, were required. It's a no-brainer, Farmer points out, that sick people want care, and he continues his careerlong, morally sound argument that access to proper health care should be a universal right. Having recounted the epidemic in the first third of the book, the author steps back to describe how the region's history made disaster inevitable--and what the future may hold. Of the nations involved, Sierra Leone and Guinea were colonies until after World War II. Trade has always supported the economies, at first via the slave trade and then extraction--mostly lumber and mining--which benefits wealthy locals and foreign industries. Often kleptocratic governments have built little health infrastructure, and what they did create was often destroyed by vicious civil wars. A final chapter reveals that Farmer and colleagues are now dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, which many developed nations are handling more or less efficiently. Though not yet severely affected, many countries in Africa are unprepared. Insightful, as always, but hardly encouraging. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
