New Books in Medicine

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Emile Chabal, "The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian" (Harvard UP, 2026) Aug 21, 2026

Show notes

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and culture, and his books became canonical works and bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. His crystal-clear writing, vast erudition, and ability to make his Marxist analysis digestible to a wide audience brought him worldwide renown. Yet Hobsbawm was no academic hermit. Through his globetrotting journalism, he was embedded in an extraordinary web of politicians, activists, and fellow intellectuals across Europe, South Asia, and the Americas, including Manmohan Singh, Che Guevara, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Fernand Braudel, E. P. Thompson, Arno Mayer, and Salvador Allende.

In The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian (Harvard University Press, 2026), Emile Chabal traces the origins of Hobsbawm’s ideas and most famous writings by exploring his scholarly foundations, delving deep into the archives to uncover hidden links and unexpected conversations that shaped his pathbreaking work. Going well beyond the Ages series of modern history books for which Hobsbawm is best known, Chabal offers the first substantial interpretation of Hobsbawm’s entire body of writing. Indeed, The Age of Hobsbawm is also a trove of unique insights into the generations of Marxist writers with whom Hobsbawm was in conversation—authors whose work continues to shape political debates globally.

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Ting Hui Lau, "Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism" (Stanford UP, 2026) Aug 17, 2026

Show notes

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China’s Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet.

Like many of China’s Indigenous borderlands, this mountainous region has long borne the force of encroaching Chinese state power. Since the 1980s, the Chinese state has been compelling the Lisu to give up their subsistence lifeways, move into urban settlements, and send their children to government boarding schools. In exchange for the so-called gifts of development—healthcare, income, and education—they suffer environmental and social catastrophes such as mass landslides, strange new illnesses, and toxic food.

Drawing on over a decade of engagement with the Lisu, Ting Hui Lau takes readers into the world of ex-shamans, heart-pained mothers, restless spirits, and demon-mad migrants as they grapple with the fallout from state development, which Lau argues is the latest phase in a centuries-long project of settler colonialism along China's Southwest frontier. At once a portrayal of loss and an ethnography of hope, Lau chronicles Lisu worldmaking amid this destruction, centering their quiet resistance through everyday acts of communal caretaking. In a time of escalating geopolitical and ecological crisis, this book calls for a new decolonial politics rooted in the transformative power of endurance.

Ting Hui Lau (email address: lau.th@nus.edu.sg) is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. She studies sociocultural, psychological, and medical anthropology, development and environmental change, Indigeneity and colonialism, and the borderland areas of East and Southeast Asia.

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Mark Solms, "The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing" (Pegasus, 2026) Aug 14, 2026

Show notes

Once dismissed as unscientific, psychoanalytic therapy is proving to be among our most effective medical treatments of any kind - outperforming psychiatric drugs and rivaling vaccines in its power to prevent and heal. Why does it work so well?
Perhaps because one of the most controversial figures in psychology was right all along. Neuroscience now confirms much of what Sigmund Freud conjectured over a century ago: our deepest struggles stem, not from chemical imbalances, but from buried memories and unconscious conflicts that no pill can touch.
Using enthralling case studies and cutting-edge brain science, pioneering neuroscientist Mark Solms makes the case that psychoanalysis should resume its position as our master theory of the mind. Yet modern research also reveals where Freud got important things wrong. Could correcting these errors make therapy even more effective?
As psychiatric diagnoses soar and standard treatments continue to fail many patients, The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing (Pegasus, 2026) offers a revolutionary hope: a real science of healing, rooted in the radical idea that our suffering arises from truths we haven't yet faced.

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The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine with Jonathan Fuller Aug 13, 2026

Show notes

Jonathan Fuller’s The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine (Oxford UP, 2025) takes the reader on a philosophical tour through scientific medicine, visiting its distinctive problems, particularly problems brought about by the twentieth century fusion of medicine with epidemiology. Drawing on the author’s training in philosophy of medicine, history and philosophy of science, and clinical medicine, the book examines the contours of the ‘epidemiological medicine’ that resulted from this fusion. It dissects several philosophical problems of the new modern medicine while exploring topics such as theories of contagion and cancer, concepts and theories of disease etiology, the nature of chronic diseases and mental disorders, concepts of medical risk, models of medical evidence and medical prediction, the problems of extrapolating from clinical research, therapeutic skepticism, and the future of modern medicine. Expansive, detailed, rigorous, insightful, and refreshingly penetrable, The New Modern Medicine is an ambitious contribution to the philosophy of medicine and to our understanding of scientific medicine. It is available online open access.

This episode is hosted by Alex Broadbent, Professor of Philosophy of Science at Durham University and Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He is Director of the Durham-Johannesburg Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health, and co-leads the Measurement Lab in the Institute for Medical Humanities.

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Thomas F. Rzeznik, "A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent’s Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City" (NYU Press, 2026) Aug 11, 2026

Show notes

St. Vincent's Hospital began with a simple, but radical mission: to care for all those in need regardless of race, creed, or financial means. For more than 160 years, the hospital carried out that work, serving notables and the nameless alike, from impoverished immigrants and those stricken by devastating nineteenth-century epidemics to AIDS patients and the victims of the attacks of 9/11.

A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent’s Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City (NYU Press, 2026) provides the first comprehensive history of this remarkable institution, from its humble beginnings in 1849 to its abrupt closure in 2010. Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, St. Vincent's earned distinction not only for the quality of its medical programs, but also for its unwavering dedication to the poor. The hospital was a testament to the vision and labor of the Sisters of Charity, who founded, staffed, and administered the hospital with remarkable skill and devotion.

This captivating account documents St. Vincent's growth into one of the largest and most prominent Catholic medical centers in the United States, as well as its struggles to sustain its religious mission within the ever-changing and increasingly competitive medical marketplace. A Monument to Charity highlights the immense contributions of Catholic sisters to health care in the United States as well as the enduring legacy of all those who worked alongside them to care for the sick and alleviate suffering.

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Adam Barsouk, "Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention" (JHU Press, 2026) Aug 01, 2026

Show notes

Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026) reframes one of the most pressing medical challenges of our time: how to prevent cancer.

In this timely and accessible book, physician and medical researcher Adam Barsouk, MD, presents a sweeping examination of cancer's true origins-biological, environmental, dietary, infectious, industrial, occupational, and behavioral-and makes a compelling case for why cancer prevention must become a central priority in public and personal health.

With personal stories from his clinical practice and the latest research, Dr. Barsouk explains why more people are getting diagnosed with cancer-and at younger ages-than ever before.

This book explores a wide range of overlooked and misunderstood risk factors, as well as how inequities in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention disproportionately impact underserved populations.

Unlike typical cancer books that focus narrowly on diet or organ-specific disease, Outsmarting Cancer takes a comprehensive, systems-level view, urging readers to look beyond the symptoms and target the root causes.

Dr. Barsouk explores the role of genetic predisposition to cancer alongside environmental, lifestyle, and public policy influences that may contribute to developing the disease.

With rigorous scientific insight, he offers real-world, evidence-based strategies to reduce cancer risk in practical, meaningful ways.

Honest, urgent, and empowering, Outsmarting Cancer challenges readers to rethink how we talk about cancer and how we can reduce its burden before it begins.

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Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe Jul 25, 2026

Show notes

Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of Eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and peddlers, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them, many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts.

In A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe (Liverpool UP, 2024), Marek Tuszewicki studies manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs to tease out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in Eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbors together.

Join YIVO for a discussion with Tuszewicki about this book, led by cultural critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen.

Buy the book here

This book talk originally took place on November 11, 2024.

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Khiara Bridges, "Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans" (MIT Press, 2026) Jul 19, 2026

Show notes

An unsettling exploration of the persistence of racism in reproductive healthcare in the US—and why even affluent Black women are imperiled by substandard care.
From a leading expert on race, class, maternal health, and reproductive rights.
Racism in maternal healthcare is not reserved for the poor. An unsparing picture of inequities in prenatal care and childbirth in the United States, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans(MIT Press, 2026) reveals that not only are black people three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, but racial disparities in maternal mortality persist across income levels. That is, wealthier black people are much more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period than their white counterparts. Focusing on a San Francisco obstetrics clinic that caters to the affluent, Khiara Bridges looks at the choices around prenatal care and childbirth that class-privileged, pregnant black people are making in order to survive what has been called the “black maternal health crisis.”
Bridges, whose previous work exposed how race and racism are embedded in maternal healthcare for the poor, draws on two years of participant-observation to show how wealthier black people try to leverage their class privilege to avoid some of the negative effects of their blackness—only to discover that in a country that has never reckoned with its horrific racial past, there is no escaping racism’s reach. Throughout the book, engaging, heartbreaking, infuriating stories of women’s experiences with pregnancy and prenatal care illustrate how race and racism matter regardless of wealth or status.

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Philippa Gander, "Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We’re Disrupting Them" (Princeton UP, 2025) Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. With modern technology, we are changing our environments—and by proxy, the ecosystems around us—to override these innate rhythms of life. But at what cost? Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We're Disrupting Them (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals how Earth’s rotations shape our biology, what human sleep cycles looked like before the advent of artificial light, and why technology can’t free us from the constraints of our circadian clocks.

Philippa Gander explores the science behind the biological rhythms that animate us and our world, blending captivating storytelling with illuminating examples ranging from migratory birds and hibernating squirrels to jet-lagged pilots and astronauts in space. She shows how genetic circadian clocks are an ancient evolutionary adaptation that we share with all life on the planet, and how our rapidly expanding use of artificial light at night disrupts the time cues for entire ecosystems. Gander explains why cutting back on sleep adversely affects our well-being, safety, and longevity, and how breakthroughs in sleep science offer solutions to bring our lives more in harmony with nature’s rhythms.

An astonishing journey of scientific discovery, Life in Sync unlocks the mysteries of biological time—and offers new perspectives for anyone who has ever given up a good night’s sleep for the sake of their hectic waking hours.

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Sara Farhan, "Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959" (Edinburgh UP, 2025) Jul 12, 2026

Show notes

Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959 (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) by Dr. Sara Farhan offers a rigorous social and cultural history of the formation of medical professionals in modern Iraq and their role in shaping public health institutions. Tracing developments from late Ottoman medical reforms to the establishment of the Medical College of Mosul, the book examines the institutionalization of medical education as a critical element of the social transformation of Iraq. It reveals how shifting imperial, colonial and national frameworks sought to cultivate a cadre of physicians who would serve state and society. These experts, however, often found themselves navigating competing ideological imperatives.

This extensively researched study highlights a wealth of rarely consulted sources gathered from 14 archives, family collections, medical journals, student newspapers, film and oral interviews. Drawing on these materials, it interrogates the contradictions inherent in state-driven efforts, wherein doctors functioned as agents of reform and subjects of bureaucratic oversight. Through this, Dr. Farhan reveals the nexus between medical pedagogy, professional authority, public health policy and the broader political transformations that continually redefined medicine in Iraq.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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