Unnatural History
Breast Cancer and American Society

This book traces the changing definitions and understandings of breast cancer.

Robert A. Aronowitz (Author)

9780521822497, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 October 2007

380 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.5 cm, 0.68 kg

"[Its] ability to balance physicians' accounts with patients' stories and experiences is the main strength of this book. Aronowitz skillfully finds a middle ground between hagiography and demonization of leading cancer surgeons and researchers."
journal of social history, Heather Munro Prescott, Central Connecticut State University

Unnatural History explores the change over the last two centuries from isolated, private fears to an immense individual and collective risk of breast cancer. The book begins with the experiences of a Quaker woman diagnosed with breast cancer in 1812 and ends with our problematic era in which almost every woman is waiting for 'the axe to fall'. In between, the book traces changes in the beliefs and values of women and their doctors, medical knowledge and technology, clinical and public health practices, and the biological impact of the disease. Unnatural History suggests that we have oversold both the fear of breast cancer and the effectiveness of screening and treatment, leading to miscalculation at the individual and societal levels.

1. Introduction
2. Cancer in the breast, 1813
3. Pessimism and promise
4. Taking responsibility for cancer
5. Living at risk
6. 'Do not delay': the war against time
7. 'Prophets of doom': skeptics of the cancer establishment at mid-century
8. Balancing hope, trust, and truth: Rachel Carson
9. The rise of surveillance
10. Crisis in prevention
11. Breast cancer risk: 'waiting for the axe to fall'.

Subject Areas: Women's health [VFDW], History of medicine [MBX], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], General & world history [HBG]