And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition by Randy Shilts

Sep 01, 2009 Melody rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This book brought back the early 80s in hallucinatory detail. I remember when we first heard about Gay Cancer, and how hard it was to get any decent information. I remember when the world got wobbly and my friends were dying and it seemed like nobody cared. I was quite certain that, given my penchant for fey boys, I wouldn't be around to see the turn of the century. I vividly remember making up file folders for 1989 for my job and thinking that the ones for 1990 would be in someone else's handwr...more This book brought back the early 80s in hallucinatory detail. I remember when we first heard about Gay Cancer, and how hard it was to get any decent information. I remember when the world got wobbly and my friends were dying and it seemed like nobody cared. I was quite certain that, given my penchant for fey boys, I wouldn't be around to see the turn of the century. I vividly remember making up file folders for 1989 for my job and thinking that the ones for 1990 would be in someone else's handwriting. It was a scary time that was made electric for me by Shilts and Larry Kramer. I bought this book the week it came out, and it changed my view of everything. Absolutely everything.

Reading it again some 20-odd years later brought back the anger and the sadness and that helpless, blistering rage. This is the book that made me understand viscerally that me and mine mattered nothing to the government. It's also where I learned that the best intentions can get snarled in the weeds- that people passionately devoted to an idea will serve that idea beyond all reason, that profit comes before people, and that it always takes a movie star to catch the public's imagination.

All the mistakes, all the missteps are herein laid out in letters of fire. The Cassandras, dismissed, reviled and hushed at the time, are sadly proven right. Reagan is illuminated in the harsh light of retrospect and found wanting.

A whole generation vanished because the health officials didn't want to talk about anal sex, the blood banks didn't want to admit they should have tested the blood, the gay rights organizations couldn't conceive of closing the baths, the government couldn't fund the scientists, the scientists couldn't let go of their need to be the first, the medical journals couldn't suspend business-as-usual, the FDA couldn't understand that double blind studies were inappropriate in the face of an epidemic of this magnitude, and on and on and on. A monumental comedy of errors that could so easily have been prevented.

This book should be required reading for anyone entering any sort of health care profession or who might be a health care consumer some day. Infuriating, well-written, and tragically still timely. It could happen again.

This book changed my life. I wish it hadn't had to.(less)

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Jul 15, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone.

Recommended to Emily by: mallory warner

Shelves: health-medicine

Attempting to write a book that encompasses the enormity of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's, while also capturing the unforgivable INDIFFERENCE of the American medical community and the nation in general would seem highly impossible--if not ludicrous, right? Randy Shilts not only attempted this feat, he hit the ball out of the park when he attempted to re-enact those years in which AIDS was around every bend and no one, literally NO ONE seemed concerned about it.
Initially, labeled "Gay Cancer",...more Attempting to write a book that encompasses the enormity of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's, while also capturing the unforgivable INDIFFERENCE of the American medical community and the nation in general would seem highly impossible--if not ludicrous, right? Randy Shilts not only attempted this feat, he hit the ball out of the park when he attempted to re-enact those years in which AIDS was around every bend and no one, literally NO ONE seemed concerned about it.
Initially, labeled "Gay Cancer", AIDS erupted on the scene in the late seventies/early eighties (the first un-recorded case may well have been in the 50's or 60's), within the gay community; particularly in the bath house districts of NYC and San Francisco.
While it was quietly noticed that homosexual men were dropping like flies in these areas, very little (if any) funding was given to the NIH or the WHO or the CDC to track down how and why this was happening. It was kept "hushed" and while literally hundreds and thousands of people were starting to come down with symptoms of AIDS, the marketing and promotion of safe sex, clean needles, new blood transfusion methods et al., just wasn't been done. By anyone. The first AIDS fundraiser in NYC took place in APARTMENTS of those stricken with the disease or FRIENDS of those who had died. It was considered a good night if a few HUNDRED dollars were raised.
The research here is exhaustive. Shilts pounds every corner of the world to uncover what was happening, when, and to whom. Although I initially rated this tome 5 stars, after looking into the story a bit, I had to deduct a star for a bit of dramatics concerning the "Patient Zero" story which has not entirely been confirmed--Shilt's has gone on record and admitted this.
While this book is terrifying because of the apathetic behavior of the Reagan administration and our national health organization's dismissal of AIDS as a disease worthy of attention, it's also agonizing to realize that this disease continued to spread because it wasn't taken seriously--even, sometimes, by those who actually had it! A wealth of misinformation and shoddy logic let this epidemic grow into spreading far further than it ever needed to. And that, ultimately, is what makes this book such an astounding, yet totally tragic and bewildering piece of historical writing.(less)

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Dec 23, 2007 Katie Abbott Harris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you're seeking a comprehensive history of the AIDS epidemic, look no further. Written as a detective story, this must read book covers all aspects of the disease, from history, to journalism, to politics, to people. Randy Shilts, in his thorough investigative report, highlights the many blunders along the way, blunders that are unbelievable in retrospect. It is not an anti-Republican rant, rather it is a very fair assessment of the collective failure of all entities involved. Because the indi...more

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Dec 12, 2008 laaaaames rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is really important, considering:

1. We are likely not safe from another random crazy deadly virus that will catch us offguard.

2. You have probably underestimated what an asshole Reagan was.

3. You might be going to see Milk soon and would like to read of some of what happened after him in SF politics.

4. Prop 8 effing passed, proving our society has farther to come than perhaps we realized.

Points deducted because apparently the Patient Zero story is a bit hinky. Also it's often a lot to...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Larry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I recall being so incensed at the failure of common decency across every part of the 'establishment' spectrum that I think I can trace much of my continuing skepticism of our political process directly to Randy's work.

I actually think this book should be required reading at college level for any political science class that is examining the flaws of what our system can become. Eisenhower http://youtu.be/8y06NSBBRtY was right in his grave warnings about the danger inherent in the 'military indus...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Ayne Ray rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This landmark work is a detailed investigative report and eventual scathing indictment of the social and political forces that helped contribute to the tragic and rapid spread of the AIDS epidemic in its earliest years. Twenty years later, it still stands as one of the most important books on its topic.

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Feb 16, 2009 Sasha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I think everyone should read this book. Seriously. Randy Shilts presents the epic tale of the beginning of the AIDs epidemic through the eyes of health officials, scientists, doctors, politicians, patients, and the media. It is an incredible story of how America willfully ignored the spread of AIDs until it was too late to stem. He uses all the interviews and research that he did as a journalist for the SF Chronicle who covered the epidemic full time for years. The book travels all over the worl...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Jaime rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As I read this book, I couldn't help asking myself, over and over, how people could possibly have let it all happen like that. How could the bathhouses stay open so long? Why was almost no one willing to use a condoms or curtail their activities? Why were federal and local governments so unwilling to do anything?

From this late vantage point, it is easy to wonder that. Having seen AIDS, if there was to be another disease like it in sneakiness and severity, we'd likely catch on quicker, because we...more As I read this book, I couldn't help asking myself, over and over, how people could possibly have let it all happen like that. How could the bathhouses stay open so long? Why was almost no one willing to use a condoms or curtail their activities? Why were federal and local governments so unwilling to do anything?

From this late vantage point, it is easy to wonder that. Having seen AIDS, if there was to be another disease like it in sneakiness and severity, we'd likely catch on quicker, because we'd be able to say, oh, this is like AIDS, better not fuck it up this time. I was born while the events on page 435 were happening, more than two thirds of the way through the book, and grew up in a world where AIDS was a reality, where blood drives have requirements, and where condom use is taught in school. Queer people are freer than they've ever been and getting freer every day. Jonathan Larson has long since written that song asking us how we measure a year.

In the early 1980s, none of this was true. Medicine had recently conquered small pox, most STIs were treatable with a quick dose of antibiotics, nothing like AIDS had ever been see before, and even the Ebola virus had been quickly and efficiently dealt with; that the medical establishment would clear up a new disease quickly was a given. Queer people were liberating themselves but still rightfully wary of oppression and hate, wary of any attempt to curtail civil liberties or have their lives looked upon in askance. Frank public discussion of sex was a non-starter, condoms were uncouth, and Reagan was president.

Let's talk about the Reagan administration for a second. If any one person could have changed the course of all this, it was Reagan. If he had been at all interesting in spending money on anything besides mucking around in the Middle East and Latin America, AIDS would have been less of a fiasco than it was. That it took so long to figure out what was going on was directly the fault of the administration's unwillingness to fund research at the CDC and other agencies, in the name of fiscal responsibility. The man got through a term and a half without ever publicly addressing the issue! It is true that many other people made many other mistakes, but the buck stopped at the top.

So, why did the AIDS crisis end up so badly? Because no one wanted to believe it could be so bad, and Republicans hate you.

I thought of myself well versed is recent social/political history such as this, but, oh man, was this book as eye-opener. I'd only ever heard good things about ACT UP and Gay Men's Health Crisis, how they were so important and vigilant in helping the get the response to AIDS rolling. Being from down-state New York myself, I'd never heard just how abysmal the response was of New York City and New York State in the first half of the '80s. I'd never heard how San Francisco was so far ahead of the game, and how that city had the first AIDS hospital ward, and at one point was spending more on AIDS than the federal government. I have new-found appreciation for some members of the government -- Henry Waxman, Dianne Feinstein, among others -- for their roles in it all.

I couldn't stop reading this book. Even though it is over 600 pages and I read it during my last two weeks of grad school. It is engaging and heart-wrenching and mind-blowing.

There was a commercial on TV 10 to 15 years ago, where an actor went through some Suburbia, USA, and asked what it would be like if such and such high percentage of people had died, with so many orphans, and empty houses and what not. And then the actor told us that that's what it's like in some locales in Africa, where whole families are dying of AIDS daily. As the people in this book died off, I thought that's what it must have been like in the certain neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco. Gay men would watch everyone they knew die horribly -- AIDS is not a pretty death -- and then wonder when their turn would come. Could you imagine that among your own circle? I could, especially because, like some of the gay men depicted in this book, we've been in and out of each others' beds (though now with rampant condom use and HIV/STI tests that are taken regularly, things are obviously much safer) over the last few years. But what if? I can hardly imagine it, except that I can and the thought is horrifying. And here we have an account of the people who lived through (or not) such a reality. May it serve as a warning to us all, and a memorial to them.(less)

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Dec 07, 2008 E rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, bodies

Shilts writes at the end of And The Band Played On that the book is a work of journalism and that there has been no fictionalization, yet goes on to state that he reconstructs scenes and conversations, albeit based on interviews and other research. To me this process necessarily entails some degree of fictionalization, or at the very least, a departure from an 'objective' history of AIDS in Europe and America. Shilts can hardly be faulted for this given his professional and personal immersion in...more Shilts writes at the end of And The Band Played On that the book is a work of journalism and that there has been no fictionalization, yet goes on to state that he reconstructs scenes and conversations, albeit based on interviews and other research. To me this process necessarily entails some degree of fictionalization, or at the very least, a departure from an 'objective' history of AIDS in Europe and America. Shilts can hardly be faulted for this given his professional and personal immersion in San Francisco's gay community so I don't think it's reasonable to criticize him for not being impartial, but I do wish he'd explicitly acknowledged his authorial power and influence at one point or another. Instead, and particularly in the last hundred pages or so, Shilts' anger, frustration and disappointment with the factionalism among not only bureaucrats and doctors but gay men themselves shine through: he's angry with those who wanted to keep the bathhouses open, angry with what he calls AIDSpeak, angry with those "more concerned with the politics of AIDS than its medicine" (a thought he [probably accurately, given what I've read of his] attributes to Larry Kramer). He had good reason to be angry, of course, and no sane person would deny that especially in this case laborious and circular politicking eventually caused immeasurable suffering and death.

However, Shilts seems to refuse to acknowledge that his own position is political: that his support for closing bathhouses was not "just" about containment and control, that fears of persecution by Christian fundamentalists and the Reagan administration were not "just" hysterical overreaction, that desperately wanting a rapid overhaul of health agencies was not "just" about restructuring government bureaucracies. While recognizing and so despising the political stalemates he witnessed, Shilts assumes his own position is more or less apolitical, or at least more responsible, moral and essentially just than those of his adversaries.

These judgments may very well be true depending on one's own political persuasion, but his failure to address it somewhat undermines the book's "definitive" status (to say nothing of the scant attention he affords to the effects of AIDS on "the underclass"). Rather, I think ATBPO is best read as an inversion of two standard if contradictory norms: first, the notion that history is/should be objective, and second, that history is always written by the victors. ATBPO rejects both of these charges, and for this reason alone is certainly a classic.(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Cynthia Hofer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I tried first reading this book about 10 yrs ago. A cheap hardback purchase at a library resale event. It was a seemingly lengthy read at the time. Couldn’t sleep the other night, so took off the bookshelf and finally just now finished. Actually I think better that I just now finished, as I read with a modern day perspective on an epidemic that plagued so many of us with fear of the unknown back in the 80s/ 90s. This book is a beautiful yet saddening remembrance of that late 20th century fear. S...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Melanie Denyer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-challenge

This is a book I first read in the mid-nineties. Like so many at that time, one of my friends had died of AIDS, and I had done a special paper on French AIDS literature while at uni, and was loaned this by a lovely American friend.

While the style of writing is somewhat sensationalist, and while people with HIV in the western world have an excellent life expectancy these days if they are diagnosed promptly and start the right drug regimen, so it may no longer seem relevant to the current situatio...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Sonya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anybody interested in a cultural yet historical tracing of HIV/AIDS

Recommended to Sonya by: Richard a mentor

This is one of the most influential books on my life that I have ever read. I did a research paper on AIDS/HIV in college and read this book from beginning to end in one sitting in under 2 hours and this is a large book. I have re-read numerous times as I have volunteered with and lost friends to the AIDS virus. The book was recommended to me by one of my theater mentors, who was battling this disease and it is a book that I find gripping from the first page until the last I was absolutely spell...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a history of the beginning of the AIDS crisis in the United States. The narrative follows different people involved: patients, doctors, politicians, researchers, families, and others.

The book is incredibly difficult to read: for one, we know the eventual scale of the crisis, and seeing people in this book slowly come to that realization is tough. This book also tells the story of people that became infected, got sick, and died before there was any sort of real treatment -- really, b...more This book is a history of the beginning of the AIDS crisis in the United States. The narrative follows different people involved: patients, doctors, politicians, researchers, families, and others.

The book is incredibly difficult to read: for one, we know the eventual scale of the crisis, and seeing people in this book slowly come to that realization is tough. This book also tells the story of people that became infected, got sick, and died before there was any sort of real treatment -- really, before people knew what was happening. Hearing the stories of people in the gay community that are forced to watch their friends get sick and die, all the time feeling that they were just waiting for the time that they would personally get diagnosed, is nothing short of heartbreaking. The book is also difficult to read because of the repeated inaction of politicians, the infighting among researchers, and even people worried more about appearance than keeping people safe.

On the other hand, the book draws you in through the way it develops the larger story. It switches between the perspective of different people dealing with different aspects of the virus. It's useful to know how the epidemic developed, and this book does a good job of describing it.

My only criticism is that the book seems to over-dramatize in a few places. In particular, it tells the story of "patient zero", an individual that was infected near the beginning of the crisis in America, and continued to practice unsafe behaviors with many people in a few different cities. The book almost seems to lay the blame for the entire rise of the virus at his feet; in reality, while he may have helped spread the virus, the rise in popularity of travel, the long incubation period of HIV, and the fact that the medical infrastructure just wasn't really prepared to deal with this sort of virus means that AIDS was going to become a major epidemic in any case. In many places, the novel describes his thoughts as he first starts to become sick, as more information becomes known, and as he finally passes on; I understand that it can be a useful writing technique, but in this case I think it does the book a disservice. Still, it's one minor problem in what otherwise is a great book.(less)

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Jul 16, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As someone born in 1978, the existence of (and fight against) HIV and AIDS has always been something I took for granted, but “And The Band Played On” takes readers back to the first days of the epidemic, when very little was known and, unfortunately, even less was done. For those unaware of the details surrounding these early days (which included myself), this book is an eye opening, and comprehensive, look at all aspects of this disease. The slow recognition (by members of the gay community, an...more As someone born in 1978, the existence of (and fight against) HIV and AIDS has always been something I took for granted, but “And The Band Played On” takes readers back to the first days of the epidemic, when very little was known and, unfortunately, even less was done. For those unaware of the details surrounding these early days (which included myself), this book is an eye opening, and comprehensive, look at all aspects of this disease. The slow recognition (by members of the gay community, and by doctors serving large numbers of at-risk clients) that the increase in previously rare disease was not a coincidence but a new virus was just the first step.
It was after the threat became clear, however, that Shilts’ chronicle turns from medical mystery and discovery to despondency, as he describes the ignorance, the political maneuvering, and the widespread denials which led to thousands and thousands of preventable infections. Even after it was well known that HIV was transmitted by bodily fluids (and was not the result of excessive drug use – a theory my 10th grade CCD teacher STILL argued in 1995), many bath house owners (who, as a result of their financial success and popularity of their businesses, were often leaders in the gay community) chose commerce over safety and stridently opposed even the small precautions that could have been taken. Likewise, the refusal of blood banks to undertake pre-emptory screening or conduct readily available tests for markers of the disease was another example of how many in power decided to stick their heads in the sand, with deadly results.
No less destructive was the Reagan administration’s willingness to bend scientific evidence around partisan politics; to ignore the requests and warnings of the government’s own scientists; to thwart the CDC’s attempts at providing national leadership on the issue; and to sit idly by while demagogues on its right-wing argued that AIDS was a well-deserved plague on amoral individuals. One can only hope that history will highlight the dreadful impact that resulted from such apathy.
Ultimately, however, the book’s tenor changes as the world begins to accept the existence, transmission, and effects of HIV. The description of how people (both within and without the gay community) came together and provided to their friends and loved ones the care, support, and compassion needed at such desperate times is an uplifting and hopeful coda on which to end. While the failure of the federal government and gay leaders to accept and respond to the reality of the crisis was odious, it was in overcoming these obstacles that the gay community found a new sources of its strength.(less)

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Jul 12, 2012 Kater Cheek rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book has just about everything I like in a non-fiction. It's got science, medicine, high stakes, historical significance, and modern relevance. Trying to figure out why it wasn't more compelling to me, I had to focus on the 6th word in the title: Politics.

This novel is about AIDS, but it's much more about people than about science. Shilts has a huge cast of characters, from French researchers to gay activists to scientists with the NIH and CDC. He tracks the disease from Fire Island nightcl...more This book has just about everything I like in a non-fiction. It's got science, medicine, high stakes, historical significance, and modern relevance. Trying to figure out why it wasn't more compelling to me, I had to focus on the 6th word in the title: Politics.

This novel is about AIDS, but it's much more about people than about science. Shilts has a huge cast of characters, from French researchers to gay activists to scientists with the NIH and CDC. He tracks the disease from Fire Island nightclub-hoppers in New York to sexy French-Canadian flight attendants in San Francisco. The aphorism among those who try to gain money for non profits is that no one cares about a thousand starving people in Africa, but they will care about one starving child. Along those lines, people don't care about 20,000 dead, but they might care about one dying person.

I might have cared more about one dying person that a slough of them as well. The main problem I had with this book is that there were too many names to keep track of. That might sound funny from a person who loved George R.R.Martin's dense tomes, but in high fantasy, everyone fights for their lives, and some win and some die. In this novel, some people died, and others bickered about funding.

The problem, I think, is that this book lacked a plot. That may seem an unfair accusation to level at a non-fiction book, but every book needs a plot. In the Ghost Map, a book about cholera, the scope was "how is this disease caused" and the span of time covered its outbreak. I keep wondering, what was this book about? Was it about the epidemic? If so, it ended too soon (in span of time). It should have concluded with the current numbers of victims in Africa, and how education and behavior change altered the patterns of contagion in America. Was it about how gay culture in America was altered by the epidemic? If so, it should have maybe touched on how gay rights has changed as a result of the epidemic. Was it about the disease itself? If so, it didn't really delve too deeply into how HIV causes AIDS.

Shiltz focused almost primarily upon the political aspects. Funding funding funding. Who got funding, who didn't? Who got credit for discovering this and that, who didn't? Who didn't want to be tainted by association with the "gay" disease? Here's a spoiler for those who don't know: the US government twiddled its thumbs and looked the other way while thousands and thousands of Americans died, because those Americans weren't heterosexual. Here's another spoiler: thousands of gays became infected because they were not willing to hear straight people tell them to stop having sex. The AIDS epidemic was a tragedy beyond Shakespearian propoprtions.

But Schiltz left some crucial things out. He mentioned the fight over whether or not to close the bathhouses, but no one ever mentioned when the researchers discovered that AIDS can be prevented by condoms. That seems a huge oversight. Maybe it happened after the book was published. He chronicled the contagion and the death from AIDS of many gay men, which should have been compelling, but their tales got lost amid the slough of other names thrown at me.

The other problem I had with this is that it felt too long. It felt 30-40% longer than it should have been. That's probably because of the ratios of how he dealt with the different aspects. I like science, history, and tense mysteries (discovery of a disease can be a very tense mystery) Politics are okay, but only if they talk about people I'm familiar with, like the Lannisters. I wanted to read a book that was 50% science 30% history 20% human drama, and a smidge politics. What I got was a book that was 70% politics (about people I've never heard of, mostly) 10% human drama, 20% history, and only trace of science.

That may not sound fair to Shiltz, but I also felt unfairly treated, when I bought a book that seemed like it would be a tense drama about one of the most important epidemics in the 20th century, and it ended up making me yawn and wonder if I should finish reading it.

I recommend this for people who like politics more than science, and anyone who wants a well-rounded understanding of American history.(less)

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May 10, 2012 Randy Ehrler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Consequences of Unchecked Appetites

This is a fantastic book about a horrible disease. It is, in many ways, a journalistic masterpiece. Randy Shilts plays no favorites in his telling of the origins, rapid spread and search for a treatment for H.I.V. / AIDS in the early 1980’s. Everyone is held accountable for his or her part in this epidemic. Ultimately, this is a story about unchecked appetites.

AIDS grew out of a lifestyle of sexual promiscuity. This is not a condemnation of gays. It is a c...more The Consequences of Unchecked Appetites

This is a fantastic book about a horrible disease. It is, in many ways, a journalistic masterpiece. Randy Shilts plays no favorites in his telling of the origins, rapid spread and search for a treatment for H.I.V. / AIDS in the early 1980’s. Everyone is held accountable for his or her part in this epidemic. Ultimately, this is a story about unchecked appetites.

AIDS grew out of a lifestyle of sexual promiscuity. This is not a condemnation of gays. It is a condemnation of the belief that we can do whatever we want, wherever we want, with whomever we want as often as we want. So many of the challenges in modern life are outgrowths of this thinking. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, and bankruptcy – I could go on – are modern maladies that result from our behaviors – our choices and our failure to live within the “margins.” As a society, we consume too much, do too much, and allow too much of everything – food, sex, media, sugar, alcohol, etc. Unchecked appetites. Our bodies are not designed for this level of consumption. They cannot process the sheer volume of “stuff” we ingest and expose them to on a daily basis. The logical outgrowth is disease.

I admire Shilts for his honest portrayal of everyone involved in the story. As a gay man who later died of AIDS, he did not let his own community of the hook for their behavior. Or the media and general public who reacted with fear rather than sympathetic and open hearts. Nor did he go easy on the medical establishment and governmental agencies that managed this disease with ego, greed and hubris rather than compassion and love.

Another element this story so beautifully portrays is how the human ego can so horribly muck things up. Like many of the “diseases” of modern living – there was a great deal of money to be made – and egos to be stroked – in the treatment of AIDS. So many people serve themselves – often contributing to the spread and extended life of a malady because their pride is fed by, and they profit greatly from, their role in it. I look at the drug companies, the medical industry, disease associations (American Cancer Society, et al.) and other supporting characters – millions are made off of every disease - so much that you wonder if a cure is truly desired. What would we do with these giant hospitals and bottles of blue pills if people were actually healthy and free of disease?

And the Band Played On reads like great fiction. It is a tremendous learning experience – about the gay culture of San Francisco in the 70’s, about how the medical establishment works, and about how greed and hubris get in the way of progress – and real solutions. This is important to consider as we ask the government to take on an ever-increasing load of responsibilities for our care as individuals. Do we really want a government hack in Washington to decide our fate? Will he/she decide in your best interest or in his/her own? After reading this book, I think I know the answer.

I think John Mellencamp said it best in his song Paper in Fire –

There is a good life
Right across this green field
And each generation stares at it from afar
But we keep no check
On our appetites
So the green fields turn to brown
Like paper in fire

Unchecked appetites of any kind will lead to pain, suffering and ruin.
(less)

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Apr 25, 2011 Lynn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Simply put, one of the best books I've ever read, and probably the most gripping nonfiction I've ever come across. Told in straightforward, chronological order, with a mix of personal portraits and political, medical, and social reporting, this traces the first many years of the spread of the AIDS virus. It is a fascinating, but horrifying account of the (lack of) response to the disease during its brisk progression from rare and mysterious affliction to a much more common, but still marginalize...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Mark rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't finish this. Reads like bad journalism. The story is, of course, tragic, but the various accounts ring false like the stories that actors tell. For example, we find: "On a hunch, Gottlieb twisted some arms to convince pathologists to take a small scraping of the patient's lung tissue through a nonsurgical maneuver." OK, so the author isn't a doctor, but 1. pathologists don't do endobronchial biopsies, pulmonologists do, 2.nobody has to twist a pulmonologists arm to do an endobronchial b...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Max rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I didn't finish this book, I found the first half of it very enjoyable. It's basically epidemiology that reads like a detective story, Shilts describes the mystery of the early days of HIV/AIDS through the eyes of the doctors, patients and policymakers involved.

While the book was well-written, very well-researched, and mostly enjoyable, I did have a couple of issues with it. First, stylistically, Shilts method of switching around between the many different characters is effective during t...more While I didn't finish this book, I found the first half of it very enjoyable. It's basically epidemiology that reads like a detective story, Shilts describes the mystery of the early days of HIV/AIDS through the eyes of the doctors, patients and policymakers involved.

While the book was well-written, very well-researched, and mostly enjoyable, I did have a couple of issues with it. First, stylistically, Shilts method of switching around between the many different characters is effective during the beginning of the book when HIV is a big mystery no one knows what is going on. It makes the story more thrilling. But I think Shilts follows too many characters and many of them through too many mundane details. This makes the second half of the book much less exciting, since the mystery has been solved and the policy response is not nearly so interesting in this level of excruciating detail.

Second, this book is meant as a testimony to the great ineffectiveness of policymaker response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I'm not sure that I agree with this narrative. It seems that policymakers could have been more prompt in reacting, certainly; I agree that homophobia played some role in the hesitance on the part of many policymakers. I nevertheless feel that the response was less disappointing than Shilts implies. Science and medical studies can only move so fast. Even had the policymakers immediately opened the coffers of government spending to AIDS research, it seems unlikely that this would have done a huge amount to limit the epidemic. AIDS' epidemiology was understood fairly quickly and its spread had been greatly limited by the late 80s-early 90s. And despite the billions that have been invested in HIV/AIDS research over the past two decades, we still don't have a cure or a vaccine. None of this is to excuse the hesitant policy response or the homophobia; both were shameful. But I just don't believe that the policy response was as slow and poor as Shilts makes out. (less)

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Jan 23, 2011 Sandra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a doorstop book that was recommended to me by my boss when I was 21 years old. I hunted it down, and now re-read it every 2 years. It is by far the most comprehensive study of the AIDS virus and its impact on the world (particularly the US) since its discovery. Randy Shilts covers multiple continents and scenarios including but not limited to the reaction of the US blood bank industry, politics and the widely acknowledged but disputed patient zero. Throughout it all the tragedy is the po...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Dawn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just finished this after watching the film again. I say "finished," but I did skip around in the book quite a bit. Shilts' ability to juggle multiple locations, characters, and countries is certainly admirable, and it's amazing that it isn't more confusing. He uses excellent cliffhangers, but the short sections on most of the pages, and the volume of medical emergencies in this book -- as much as I enjoy medical mysteries -- caused me to thumb through. Stilts covers the early AIDS crisis, explai...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a gripping, captivating, terrifying book. It is not a traditional history. Instead, it is a series of short vignettes, snapshots of various people's lives between the early 70s and 1986 or so, as AIDS slowly emerges and proceeds to make life hellish for sundry unlucky people. The fact that much of it is set in San Francisco made it all the more interesting for me.

The book has a detective element, as various researchers and scientists frantically try to figure out what the disease is, ho...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Laini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: it-really-happened, narrative-nonfiction

There are a few things in my life that I can point to as having monumentally changed it.

#1, As a child raised by a racist mother, seeing the movie "Mississippi Burning" for the first time. I bawled my eyes out when I realized the extent of my ignorance of my black brothers and sisters and feeling utterly ashamed that I did not know more about the civil rights movement. Because someone I cared about had intentionally seen to it that I hadn't learned about it. Because watching Roots "wasn't neces...more

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May 27, 2009 Douglas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"And the Band Played On" is a must read for anyone interested in LGBT rights and history as well as health and public policy. Shilts weaves together a number of different narratives following doctors, patients, politicians, researchers and activists during the first five years of the AIDS epidemic in America. It's a deeply saddening and enraging book, analyzing the mistakes made by everyone from the politicians that withheld research funding to gay activists who refused to acknowledge the proble...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an incredibly comprehensive telling of the rise of the AIDS epidemic, and despite its being a very long telling (600 pages), I could not put it down. And the Band Played On is fascinating look at how the various players--government, gay community, media, doctors, etc--impacted the emergence, response and treatment of AIDS. The author (a San Francisco journalist) is an interesting story by himself--even though he learned of the blood test that could tell him if he had the disease early on...more

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Sep 27, 2011 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Linda by: my dad

Shelves: non-fiction

This was the first real "grown-up" non-fiction book I ever read -- recommended to me while I was still in high school by my father, of all people. It's an excellent chronicle of the early days of the AIDS epidemic, as it was first being recognized. Along the way Shilts documents the bias and indifference of the medical profession to the odd health complaints of a "subculture", the heroic efforts of a few lonely but committed stalwarts fighting an uphill battle to bring attention to this disease,...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Sophie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, lgbt

This book had been sitting on my shelves for years before I finally read it. I remember reading a review back on LibraryThing, where someone described as one of the best pieces of non-fiction they had ever read. Since it was about a period and a subject I knew little about but was curious to learn more, I got a copy. But then, it just never was the right time. I actually picked it up every so often but never managed to read more than the first couple of pages. This time, however, it was differen...more This book had been sitting on my shelves for years before I finally read it. I remember reading a review back on LibraryThing, where someone described as one of the best pieces of non-fiction they had ever read. Since it was about a period and a subject I knew little about but was curious to learn more, I got a copy. But then, it just never was the right time. I actually picked it up every so often but never managed to read more than the first couple of pages. This time, however, it was different.

Originally, this was supposed to be my new "nightstand book", the book I would read a few passages in before going to bed. That has been a working strategy for books I really want to read but which require a bit more discipline than reading other books do. But in the end, it turned out I didn't need it. Soon I was fighting with myself whether to take this book with me on my way out or the novel I was "actually reading" (come on, everybody does this, right?). Because, as depressing a book as this turned out to be, it was also incredibly hard to put down.

I was born in 1982, so I didn't know what AIDS was until the early nineties, I suppose. I didn't know much about what it had been like when AIDS first broke out. I knew it hadn't been handled well, and I knew about the prejudice attached to it, both because of the disease itself and because of the gay victims of the disease. Still, reading this was a bit of a shock. Like it says in the book: "It had never crossed Ric Walsh's mind that politics might have something to do with medicine. Now he knew better."

This book gives a detailed account on what happened in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Its focus is very much on the U.S. - Europe gets mentioned a few times, especially France, but it hardly ever talks about Africa, which seems odd considering where AIDS originated and where it's most devastating today. But Shilts' concern are the mechanics behind the actions - and inactions - of the people and institutions that you'd expect to stop an outbreak of an epidemic as horrible as AIDS is.

Sure, some of it may be the great 20/20 hindsight, but it becomes obvious that a lot of warnings simply were never heeded and calls for help remained unanswered, not only because of homophobia (which is a terrible reason, obviously, but sadly the kind of reason I expected when starting to read this), but often also because of something ridiculous like power struggles and other silly pissing contests.

There were a lot of moments where I just wanted to travel back in time and scream because of my anger and frustration. For that, it wasn't an easy book to read. Shilts interweaves the tales of politics with those of people, the people suffering and dying from AIDS. All of their tales were incredibly touching. Together with the stories of the other people who actually did something, and that in the face of so much adversity, it really is true that this is, like Shilts writes in the prologue, "ultimately, a tale of courage as well as cowardice, compassion as well as bigotry, inspiration as well as venality, and redemption as well as despair."

Shilts also writes that "it is a tale that bears telling, so that it will never happen again, to any people, anywhere." Sadly, however, in many respects not much seems to have changed. Simply considering how little attention AIDS is getting these days, apart from the once-a-year-World-AIDS-Day, gives me the chills. I also think that no matter what the conflict, a lot of people, politicians especially, will think of power first and human lives second.

So this is still an important book to read, and a well-written and readable one. Even despite the many different places and people involved, Shilts mostly manages to keep things straight for the reader. One thing I also found very effective was the death count he placed in various places. It's a chronological account, and as the numbers get higher it's more and more difficult to believe that so little was being done.

I've read a few books with darker subject matter, but all books had one thing in common: that while there are bad people, there are also good people. And that's the important thing to remember, and to try and be one of the good people, too, if at all possible. (less)

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Mar 20, 2011 Ashley is currently reading it · review of another edition

(non fiction)
although i am still currently reading this extremely long book i would still like to give a review f what i have read so far. the book "and the band played on" is a bit mature i have to say but i think i am ready to read the rest of it. this book is about the ignorance of a country, the idea of over looking a disease, and the death of many because some refused to accept people because of their sexuality and help them. it is about the AIDS epidemic. it tells snipits of things that r...more

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Jan 08, 2013 José Enrique Vivas M. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, in-english

Este libro recorre en una detalladísima investigación los orígenes de la epidemia de sida en EEUU y la reacción en el mundo político, médico, informativo, de las organizaciones sociales, etc.
La investigación es épica. Sin embargo la lectura mantiene el nivel de interés pues se lee como un diario/guión donde un puñado de personas -investigadores, médicos, periodistas, pacientes y sus familiares- van poco a poco conociendo de qué trata la misteriosa enfermedad y luego la gigantesca epidemia, los i...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Meticulously researched and expertly humanized history of the rise and spread of the AIDS epidemic in Reagan-era America. More bureaucracy, pettiness, politics, personality conflicts, judgments, ignorance and apathy than you can believe. And still somehow, the activists and scientists labored on to identify, contain and stop the virus. Epic in scope and heartbreaking to read. You know how it ends, but you keep hoping against hope for a better outcome.

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title link	preview: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition
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And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition

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