Here are 100 books that Surgery and Salvation fans have personally recommended if you like
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I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery.
This book is one of the reasons why I became a historian.
Ulrich uncovered the nearly illegible diary of an eighteenth-century midwife in Maine and included excerpts of the original at the start of each chapter. When I read the excerpts, I thought: How could these possibly be significant and what do they mean, anyway?
And then, like a detective, a gifted mind-reader, and a learned botanist all rolled into one, Ulrich unpacked each entry, weaving each snippet into the fabric of a wide textile of social history that includes reproductive history, gender and marital relations, local economies, political conflicts, and religion.
Abortion and abortifacients play a marginal role in the story Ulrich tells, but the history of midwifery and reproductive health are central to it.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, "A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and yet so similar to our own" (The New York Times Book Review).
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and…
I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery.
I appreciate Christopolous’ book because he renders concrete the abstract realm of papal pronouncements by studying their reception by sixteenth-century Italian women and their confessors. He also unearths the complexity of attitudes to abortion that existed even within the church establishment in this period.
When Pope Sixtus issued a 1588 edict declaring all who aborted their pregnancies were automatically excommunicated and reserving the right to absolve them to the papacy alone, bishops across Italy’s Renaissance states objected. They argued that neither they nor their confessants could afford to travel to Rome to seek absolution; they sought mercy and forgiveness for the women to whom they ministered.
With this example, and in other parts of his book, Christopolous treats his subjects with sensitivity and precision.
A comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy.
In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. His poignant portraits of women who terminated or were forced to terminate pregnancies offer a corrective to longstanding views: he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the "traditional family." Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its…
I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery.
Londa Schiebinger adopts a highly original premise in this book by casting a plant, the flos pavonis or “peacock flower,” as the central protagonist of the story she tells.
In this book, she presents in rich detail the story of how enslaved Africans and Indigenous women regularly and effectively used this plant to abort unwanted pregnancies. While the peacock flower itself was quickly transplanted into the Old World, knowledge of its abortifacient properties did not accompany its movement.
Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany.
But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving…
I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery.
Cassia Ross captivatingly conveys the stories of the individual women and girls, most of them financially desperate, whom the modern Brazilian state’s policing of women’s reproduction victimized.
Her book studies women’s reproductive health in Rio de Janeiro in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery (1888) and the dissolution of the country’s monarchy (1889). She argues that in this period, women’s reproductive capabilities became crucial to the expanding Brazilian state while the latter increasingly criminalized fertility control.
A Miscarriage of Justice examines women's reproductive health in relation to legal and medical policy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the onset of republicanism in 1889, women's reproductive capabilities-their ability to conceive and raise future citizens and laborers-became critical to the expansion of the new Brazilian state. Analyzing court cases, law, medical writings, and health data, Cassia Roth argues that the state's approach to women's health in the early twentieth century focused on criminalizing fertility control without improving services or outcomes for women. Ultimately, the increasingly interventionist state fostered a culture of…
I grew up thinking I liked reading about NYC more than I’d like living there. It was too hectic and loud for a bookworm like me, I thought, too dirty and dangerous. Then my husband was accepted to Cornell’s MD/PhD program, and we moved to Manhattan. Immediately, I found that while the city is as dirty as I’d feared (and it smells), its advantages far outweigh the rest. I can’t get enough of the parks, museums, food, diversity, or the history, much of which drives The Light of Luna Park. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite books that take place in New York from the 1800s to today.
Bluebird by Sharon Cameron took my breath away. It’s a thriller, a mystery, a romance, and the best type of historical fiction all rolled up together, and though it’s officially young adult, it’s too good for adults to pass up. The novel follows a German girl named Eva who flees Germany for New York City in 1946 seeking justice as much as safety. The daughter of a Nazi mastermind, Eva is hunting down her father for reasons both personal and political, and her journey is filled with both physical and psychological danger. Bluebird is fast-paced and fascinating, as well as thought-provoking and full of well-researched history on everything from Nazi propaganda to Quaker humanitarian relief in New York City.
Author of Reese's Book Club YA Pick The Light in Hidden Places, Sharon Cameron, delivers an emotionally gripping and utterly immersive thriller, perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys's Salt to the Sea.
In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles, and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird -- a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of…
In my 25 years of writing short stories, novels, and plays, I have explored my Mexican and Chicano roots in a variety of genres, from literary fiction to horror to magical realism to science fiction and everything in between. In the end, I do not discriminate when it comes to genre because a well-told story is key for me, regardless of the mode chosen by the author. My most recent novel, Chicano Frankenstein, is a case in point. In it, I blend genres: horror, science fiction, political satire, and a bit of romance. So, too, I love reading fiction that bravely challenges conventional storytelling.
I had already sold my novel when my publisher highly recommended that I read this book, which—like my own novel—is a modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I devoured it in two sittings.
Tsai’s story is a biracial, queer, gender-fluid retelling that modernizes and expands Shelley’s themes of alienation and the dangers of unchecked scientific experimentation.
While Tsai explores such weighty themes as gender identity, racism, and medical ethics, there is no skimping on the horror that will haunt your dreams.
Unwieldy Creatures, a biracial, queer, nonbinary retelling of Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein, follows the story of three beings who all navigate life from the margins: Plum, a queer biracial Chinese intern at one of the world's top embryology labs, who runs away from home to openly be with her girlfriend only to be left on her own; Dr. Frank, a queer biracial Indonesian scientist, who compromises everything she claims to love in the name of science and ambition when she sets out to procreate without sperm or egg; and Dr. Frank's nonbinary…
A former special assistant to Maryland’s attorney general, I reluctantly gave up my three-decade legal career to tell two remarkable stories I was uniquely qualified to tell. Orphaned at age 11, I grew up in New Orleans as a foster care client of the Jewish Children’s Regional Service, the agency that formerly ran the orphanage in which my mentor, legal trailblazer Bessie Margolin, was raised. It was also the orphanage in which I would've been raised had it not closed in 1946. During the time I spent with Bessie Margolin she inspired me to both become her future biographerand go on to write the first comprehensive history of the nation’s earliest purpose-built Jewish orphanage.
Kim Van Alkemade wrote this New York Times bestselling novel based upon a series of real-life experiences, including those of her great-grandmother who worked as a counselor in New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
Orphan #8 is a powerful and unforgettable book about Rachel, who after being placed in New York’s Hebrew Infant Home, is subjected to experimental radiation treatments as Dr. Mildred Solomon bolsters her medical reputation at the expense of the little girl’s health.
The story focuses on Rachel, now an adult nurse, when Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Given the widespread popularity of this book, I know I was not the only reader riveted by Rachel’s choice between compassion and retribution, and the extraordinary human capacity to cause harm and to love.
In this stunning new historical novel inspired by true events, Kim van Alkemade tells the fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York City Jewish orphanage years before. In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave…
I began working in prisons 50 years ago. I was just out of grad school and I accepted the challenge of starting a literacy program in the Philadelphia Prison System. The shock of cellblock life was eye-opening, but the most unexpected revelation was the sight of scores of inmates wrapped in bandages and medical tape. Unknown to the general public, the three city prisons had become a lucrative appendage of the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School. As I would discover years later, thousands of imprisoned Philadelphians had been used in a cross-section of unethical and dangerous scientific studies running the gamut from simple hair dye and athlete’s foot trials to radioactive isotope, dioxin, and US Army chemical warfare studies. My account of the prison experiments, Acres of Skin, helped instill in me an abiding faith in well-researched journalism as an antidote to societal indiscretions and crimes.
Known only to true devotees of medical ethics and the history of human research, Jay Katz’s hefty volume (1,150 pages) is a comprehensive encyclopedia of humans used as research material. Information-packed chapters cover everything from Chester Southam’s use of senile hospital patients in cancer cell injection studies during the 1960s, and the legal fallout from such indiscretions, to the ethical obligations of researchers, and the evolution of informed consent as a pillar of ethical human research. Impressive in both detail and scope, this imposing piece of scholarship is a valuable resource for anyone looking to learn the many moral and legal issues inherent in experimenting on humans.
In recent years, increasing concern has been voiced about the nature and extent of human experimentation and its impact on the investigator, subject, science, and society. This casebook represents the first attempt to provide comprehensive materials for studying the human experimentation process. Through case studies from medicine, biology, psychology, sociology, and law―as well as evaluative materials from many other disciplines―Dr. Katz examines the problems raised by human experimentation from the vantage points of each of its major participants―investigator, subject, professions, and state. He analyzes what kinds of authority should be delegated to these participants in the formulation, administration, and review…
I began working in prisons 50 years ago. I was just out of grad school and I accepted the challenge of starting a literacy program in the Philadelphia Prison System. The shock of cellblock life was eye-opening, but the most unexpected revelation was the sight of scores of inmates wrapped in bandages and medical tape. Unknown to the general public, the three city prisons had become a lucrative appendage of the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School. As I would discover years later, thousands of imprisoned Philadelphians had been used in a cross-section of unethical and dangerous scientific studies running the gamut from simple hair dye and athlete’s foot trials to radioactive isotope, dioxin, and US Army chemical warfare studies. My account of the prison experiments, Acres of Skin, helped instill in me an abiding faith in well-researched journalism as an antidote to societal indiscretions and crimes.
Welsome investigates a particularly repugnant episode in medical history; doctors secretly injecting hospital patients with plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project. Designed to weigh the increased threat of cancer during the outset of the atomic era, the book navigates the governmental and scientific concerns of a new nuclear world, the prestigious players who argued for human experimentation, and the unwitting victims - all hospital patients - who’d be used as test material. In addition, Welsome also explores other Cold War examples of atomic abuse such as “radioactive cocktails” given to pregnant women and radioactive breakfast cereal given to five and six-year-old “morons” at state institutions.
In a Massachusetts school, seventy-three disabled children were spoon fed radioactive isotopes along with their morning oatmeal....In an upstate New York hospital, an eighteen-year-old woman, believing she was being treated for a pituitary disorder, was injected with plutonium by Manhattan Project doctors....At a Tennessee prenatal clinic, 829 pregnant women were served "vitamin cocktails"--in truth, drinks containing radioactive iron--as part of their prenatal treatmen....
In 1945, the seismic power of atomic energy was already well known to researchers, but the effects of radiation on human beings were not. Fearful that plutonium would cause a cancer epidemic among workers, Manhattan Project doctors…
As a physician, medicine is my job. But along the way, I wondered how medicine got to where it is now–like really wondered. I wondered to the point that I was reading the original treatises written by 18th-century physicians. I started publishing research on medical history and giving presentations at medical conferences. I’d like to think this helps me be a better doctor by broadening my perspective on the healthcare industry. But at the very least, I’ve found these books enjoyable and compelling. I hope you enjoy them, too!
Healthcare is delivered by people who are sometimes subject to biases or prejudices, and this book is a vivid and extraordinarily researched account of how horrible it is when these biases and prejudices go unchecked.
However, what really hit hard for me was that this book is only half about medical history. The last part of this book discusses research practices and biases that are in effect today.
As a physician, this book was imperative to better understand the historical and contemporary issues involving race and medicine.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • The first full history of Black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read this masterful book.
"[Washington] has unearthed a shocking amount of information and shaped it into a riveting, carefully documented book." —New York Times
From the era of slavery to the present day, starting with the earliest encounters between Black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, Medical Apartheid details the ways…
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