Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Tinderbox, by Craig Timberg & Daniel Halperin

Tinderbox: how the West sparked the AIDS epidemic and how the world can finally overcome it, by Craig Timberg & Daniel Halperin, 352 pages

Well, the title's a mouthful, but it pretty much sums it up.  The authors argue that nineteenth-century colonialism and modern-day cultural imperialism are what are keeping Africa locked in a cycle of AIDS infection.  This book really provides a great deal of food for thought; the authors specifically dispute the sensational idea put forth in Edward Hooper's gigantic tome The River that AIDS was spread to humans via polio vaccines, which I always found fairly suspect.  They support the growing theory that widespread circumcision would have tempered the spread of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, and propose that alot of international policy regarding AIDS in Africa is doomed to fail because it doesn't include the input of Africans.

My only issue with this book was the endnotes- if something is important enough or needed as explanation, make it a footnote, so I don't have to keep flipping to the back of the book.  I love footnotes- I hate endnotes.  And that might have been the nerdiest sentence I've ever written.  

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