67 pages • 2 hours read
Siddhartha MukherjeeThe Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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What makes cancer emblematic of the atomic age?
Why do you think scientists divided 20th century cancer research into chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery?
Why were radical surgeons at first so reluctant to give up their approach to treating cancer?
Why do you think researchers were reluctant to believe that smoking caused lung cancer?
Why was understanding the mechanism behind cancer so essential to finding cures that worked?
How did understanding that cancer came from our own genome affect our sense of cancer as an “enemy”?
How were politics and cancer interconnected? What tactics did the anti-cancer lobby use to get more funding and publicity?
How does Mukherjee convey what the experience of cancer treatment is like?
Do you think the book ends on a hopeful note about the future of cancer research? Why or why not?
Do you think it’s ethical for a pharmaceutical company to release a drug before it’s been fully tested if it shows promise in the treatment against a type of cancer? Why or why not?
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By Siddhartha Mukherjee
