Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £16.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
A comprehensive history of cancer – one of the greatest enemies of medical progress – and an insight into its effects and potential cures, by a leading expert on the illness.
In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee, doctor, researcher and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years.
The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience and perseverance, but also of hubris, arrogance and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out ‘war against cancer’. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories and deaths, told through the eyes of predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary.
From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteeth-century recipient of primitive radiation and chemotherapy and Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through toxic, bruising, and draining regimes to survive and to increase the store of human knowledge.
Riveting and magesterial, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments and a brilliant new perspective on the way doctors, scientists, philosophers and lay people have observed and understood the human body for millennia.
What listeners say about The Emperor of All Maladies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- N. J. Keely
- 26-10-17
Very fascinating
Such a fascinating & sad story to listen to; I enjoyed the narrators voice as well. Highly recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A customer
- 20-12-20
One of the best popular science books I’ve listened to on here
It is so good. I’m a undergraduate biomed student who’s been studying a genetics module that included a number of lectures on cancer so I got this book to elevate / enhance my studying. I was so engaged by this book. Thought it was terrific.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 30-05-20
Americentric and extremely long
This book has a lot of valuable information and flows easily for the first half but it is so long and filled with small details one cannot help but lose interest in it after a while. And the flow of the book isn’t near as well. It jumps from one thing to the next in one chapter it is talking about 1950s the next chapter about 1980s and goes back to 1960s in the next (this is an example I don’t actually remember what each chapter talked about there are so many of them). The book is also very Americentric and talks very little about the rest of the world. It is not really a biography of cancer but a biography of cancer in the USA. If you are interested in the subject, though, go for it, I learned a lot from it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 07-04-24
the writing was so good that the science went down like a cool beer on a sunny day
a must read for everyone who has cells and a mind to understand it. loved every second
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 03-04-18
Enthralling, informative, powerful.
I would recommend to anyone hoping to learn anything about oncology, it's history and physiognomy, and to anyone who is interested in gaining a more personal insight into the effects of cancer.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- polly
- 09-07-16
Completely fascinating
I wouldn't have read this - it's a very long book - but it has been perfect to listen to …. very well read and a most interesting and intriguing history of cancer. I had never - naively - realised all the politics of medical science and found this an added source of interest.
Whatever your involvement with the disease, or with the science of medicine, this is both a serious and a highly entertaining book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lawrence Wray
- 17-10-17
Excellent read.
I will be reading this one again. So many relevant and interesting sections. If you have cancer, it's a must.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Megan
- 26-09-20
Well written, stimulating, inspiring, well narrated
Gives a really good history of the disease and accessible explanations of its causes and how and why various strategies work and fail. Well written with some wonderful quotes from poetry and works of literature. Occasionally some descriptions that are not for the faint hearted.
I saw another reviewer had said that the book was US centric. That is nonsense. Yes, the writer is US based and so are his patients but his stories cross the world.
I thought that the narration was very good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chris Anderson
- 15-08-16
Painfully, deliberately honest
Mukherjee writes from the front lines of the war against cancer. He is clearly both passionate and knowledgeable about his subject, and is a great story teller, weaving patient tales in amongst his historic account of progress in understanding and tackling the disease.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jamie O'Shaughnessy
- 02-01-20
Excellent history of cancer and treatment
I expect many people will be attracted to this book if they, or someone in their family, is diagnosed with cancer. It’s a remarkable book by a very remarkable author. It tells the history of our understanding of cancer along with the evolution of treatments. Interspersed, yet only as general background, are snippets of stories of patients Dr Mukherjee had crossed paths with. This gives it a more human touch. Well worth a read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!