And the Band Played On

RANDY SHILTS was one of the first journalists to recognize AIDS as an important national issue and, in the early 1980s, he began to report on AIDS full time for the San Francisco Chronicle, making him the only journalist to do so. He was also the author of The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk and Conduct Unbecoming: Gay and Lesbians in the U.S. Military. Shilts died of AIDS-related complications in early 1994.

出版者:Stonewall Inn Editions

作者:Randy Shilts

页数:630

出版时间:2000-04-09

价格:USD 16.95

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780312241353

图书标签:社会英文原版美国政治历史同性恋非虚构文化

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 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.

读后感

《世纪的哭泣》原著题目是“And the Band Played On”，让人联想到杜牧的诗句：商女不知亡国恨，隔江犹唱后庭花。书问世以后，许多人问兰迪·希尔兹为何取此书名，他解释道，“照常营业”的时髦说法而已——其实这是一句歌词，在美国乐队“The Temptation”1970年的作品“Ball ...  

「有些人已经说过，罗纳德·里根在历史书上只有一件事被人铭记：他是任由艾滋病在美国蔓延人；是在行动迫在眉睫时，将政治置于美国人民的健康之上的国家元首。」 如果最开始发现的时候就得到重视，得到公众的关注和理解，这可能可以改变一些。然而，疾控中心只把这些未确定的...  

我……哇的哭出来，太难受了，看完我一天没看书。 其实我刚开始看的时候，就知道全球艾滋病患者目前已经超过七千万了。但那是统计数据，和真正看到这件事情怎么发生，完全不一样。 他们是比尔，盖瑞，尼克，保罗，他们是和我们一样有名字的人。我看着他们努力，但我知道，他们...  

用户评价

通过本书 将知道人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）和获得性免疫综合征（AIDS）是如何在美国发现并扩散的 将看到影响艾滋病的大量事件及各种人物 尤其是政府部门、医疗及研究机构、同性恋组织、媒体中的个体 作者在刻画人类的懦弱、绝望、自私、贪婪的同时 也呈现了人类在面对死亡时的勇气、进取、无私和悲悯 最后以史为鉴打脸提醒：如果一种致命的新疫情蔓延 国家在那一刻没有任何理由推卸责任 而监督政府研究人员和公共卫生部门是否尽职的 本该是最富攻击性的媒体 大众的「看门狗」各中意味 自行体会

这个书名太好了

美利坚也并没有那么美好，但是也要看到美利坚的厉害之处，那些在逆境中坚持研究的学者值得尊敬，官僚们的表现则令人厌恶。

I can't help but think maybe the history is repeating itself. What‘s happened in the US feels so familiar. The Trump administration's response to covid-19 in the early days of the outbreak was almost parallel to that of Reagan's.

这本大概是对艾滋的历史最全面深入的解剖了。也只有Randy SHILTS能写出这样的作品—Access和Empathy！如果我是editor，我唯一的建议是600页的内容其实是可以再浓缩的。（有Hiroshima做先例，任何non-fiction都应该有被浓缩在两百页以内依然是masterpiece的自信。）