Medicine, Rationality and Experience : An Anthropological Perspective

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile tour de force
Review: Simply put, the interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, physicians, and others at Harvard have been doing some of the most important and far-reaching work in the area of medical anthropology ever. Byron Good's book, initially given as the Henry Louis Morgan Lectures at Rochester, is a beautifully written and accessible summation of much of the innovative thinking going on with his colleagues and former students --- most notably folks like MaryJo Delvecchio Good, Art Kleinman, Lawrence Cohen, Pete Guarnaccia, Carol Mattingly, and others. The major controversies facing anthropology and medicine have been legion, and the discipline has, indeed, been put to ethically-suspect use in service to imperialist ends before. However, as Good argues so effectively, there is still much use for medical anthropology to serve progressive ends in a democratically-ordered world.

Rating:
Summary: Theoritical
Review: This book is valuable in that it proposes an overview of the field of medical anthropology and also proposes a literary approach. At the same time, its quality is its weakness: it does not look at the political economy side.