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Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body
Hugh Aldersey-Williams · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorFlu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
Gina Kolata · 338 pages
The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Es
Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Bloomsbury Sigma)
Kathryn Harkup · 305 pages
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Mary Roach · 304 pages
A hilarious and witty look into the history of using cadavers for science, grave diggers, and options to consider about your burial plan. A dark and uncomfortable subject made more palatable and downright funny.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson · 560 pages
"As I stood on the roof of my house, taking in this unexpected view, it struck me how glorious it was that this was exactly how this land must have looked to centuries of people, quietly going about their daily business – eating, sleeping, having sex, endeavouring to be amused – and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mo
The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
Jonathan Eig · 408 pages
Immersed in radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes, this is the fascinating story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women
Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English · 369 pages
From the Publisher: A provocative new perspective on female history, the history of American medicine and psychology, and the history of child-rearing unlike any other.
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
Steve Silberman · 544 pages
What is autism? A lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more—and the future of our society depends on our understanding it. WIRED reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprisin
Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Pope Brock · 330 pages
In 1917, after years of selling worthless patent remedies throughout the Southeast, John R. Brinkley--America's most brazen young con man--arrived in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. He set up a medical practice and introduced an outlandish surgical method using goat glands to restore the fading virility of local farmers.It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly tu
The Gene: An Intimate History
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 593 pages
The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function. This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the aut
Dr. Feelgood: The Story of the Doctor Who Influenced History by Treating and Drugging Prominent Figures Including President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley
Richard A. Lertzman, William J. Birnes · 199 pages
Doctor Max Jacobson, whom the Secret Service under President John F. Kennedy code-named "Dr. Feelgood," developed a unique "energy formula" that altered the paths of some of the twentieth-century's most iconic figures, including President and Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis. JFK received his first injection (a special mix of "vitamins and hormones," according to Jacobson)
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Candice Millard · 494 pages
James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked
The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
John Tayman · 426 pages
Reveals the untold history of the infamous American leprosy colony on Molokai and of the extraordinary people who struggled to survive under the most horrific circumstances. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those w
The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth
Matthew Algeo · 255 pages
Recounts the summer of 1893 when President Grover Cleveland disappeared for five days, covering up a surgery to remove cancer from his palate and jaw.
How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
David France · 640 pages
"From the creator of and inspired by the seminal documentary of the same name--an Oscar nominee--the definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, and the powerful, heroic stories of the gay activists who refused to die without a fight. Intimately reported, this is the story of the men and women who, watching their friends and lovers fall, ignored by public officials, reli
Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa
Joan Jacobs Brumberg · 370 pages
"When Fasting Girls first appeared in 1988, anorexia nervosa was widely considered a new disease. In fact, most people thought it would go away. Joan Jacobs Brumberg's book changed that perception by demonstrating when and where anorexia nervosa originated and why it has become so "popular" in our time. A classic work that is both a biography of the disease and a sustained inquiry into the cultura
The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction
Rachel P. Maines · 181 pages
The author explores hysteria in Western medicine throughout the ages and examines the characterization of female sexuality as a disease requiring treatment. Medical authorities, she writes, were able to defend and justify the clinical production of orgasm in women as necessary to maintain the dominant view of sexuality, which defined sex as penetration to male orgasm - a practice that consistently
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy · 288 pages
Charts the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies, documenting how before its vaccine the disease caused fatal brain infections and sparked the creations of monsters, including werewolves, vampires and zombies.
Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born
Tina Cassidy · 312 pages
"Starting with a lively, personal introduction in which Tina Cassidy describes her grandmother's, her mother's, and her own experiences of giving birth, readers are taken on an astounding journey into the history of childbirth. From evolution to the epidural and beyond, Tina Cassidy presents an intelligent, enlightening, and impeccably researched cultural history of how and why we are born the way
Pox: An American History
Michael Willrich · 427 pages
Chronicles how America's Progressive Era war on smallpox sparked one of the twentieth century's leading civil liberties battles, describing the views and tactics of anti-vaccine advocates who feared an increasingly large government.
In a Different Key: The Story of Autism
John Donvan, Caren Zucker · 670 pages
"Nearly seventy-five years ago, Donald Triplett of Forest, Mississippi, became the first child diagnosed with autism. Beginning with his family's odyssey, In a Different Key tells the extraordinary story of this often misunderstood condition, and of the civil rights battles waged by the families of those who have it. Unfolding over decades, it is a beautifully rendered history of ordinary people d
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Deborah Blum · 327 pages
The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner