The Emperor of All Maladies

This epoch-making book is a comprehensive, vividly stated, and deeply substantiated scientific history of the relationship between humanity and cancer, against which personal stories of the war with the “emperor of all maladies” unfold. Guiding the reader through the changing... perceptions of this disease across different eras, treatment methods, milestones in understanding its mechanisms, and the conflicts of interest surrounding it, the author reveals the reasons for the limitations in victories over it and outlines realistic contours for coexistence with it in the future. The eternal dreams of a magical pill for cancer are confronted in the pages of the book by an enemy that is so insidious because it too much resembles distorted reflections of ourselves in its biological perfection.