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Polio: An American Story
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.5490973
EAN: 9780195307146
ISBN: 0195307143
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: September 01, 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
Here David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. He also tells the story of Isabel Morgan, perhaps the most talented of all polio researchers, who might have beaten Salk to the prize if she had not retired to raise a family.
Oshinsky offers an insightful look at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was founded in the 1930s by FDR and Basil O'Connor, it revolutionized fundraising and the perception of disease in America. Oshinsky also shows how the polio experience revolutionized the way in which the government licensed and tested new drugs before allowing them on the market, and the way in which the legal system dealt with manufacturers' liability for unsafe products. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the specter of polio, like the specter of the atomic bomb, soon became a cloud of terror over daily life.
Both a gripping scientific suspense story and a provocative social and cultural history, Polio opens a fresh window onto postwar America.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Excellent History of the Era and the Disease
I remember the polio scare when I was a kid in the fifties. This book is a very readable and entertaining history of the drive to discover a vaccine for the dread disease.
The politics, the scientific jealousies and the professional drive to succeed all are woven together. This reads like a triller, even though we know the eventual outcome.
I highly recommend this book. If you are interested in history, this is a detailed narrative of all the players. If you are also ... Read More
Rating: - Remarkable 20th Century History
This book earned the pulitzer prize for (American) history, which it well deserved. Polio is an informative and entertaining book covering all the bases of one of the 20th century's great crusades. Sharp prose. Salk comes across as the hero, though a pretty flawed one at that, and the author makes no attempt to cover up the warts. Sabin makes his important contributions as well. I walked away feeling like I got a good handle on the history of Polio - the book achieved its purpose.
Rating: - great historical book about the outbreak of polio and its eradication in the US
The Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and their March of Dimes campaign was started by FDR and managed by his law firm colleague Basil O'Connor. O'Connor continued the movement after Roosevelt's death in 1945 and financed the reseearch into a vaccine. The competition between Salk and Sabin was very interesting and the large number of cases that hit in the early 1950s was the impetous for Salk's accelerated assault on the disease using the dead form of the virus. Sabin believed in a live virus and ... Read More
Rating:  - Worthy of Attention
This is a solid treatment of the popular history of polio in the US and the process of discovering and implementing an effective vaccine. The book is quite strong on the history and political machinations involved, but I would like to have seen a bit more detail on the science side. From a 2007 vantage point, it is difficult to appreciate the fear and helplessness that polio visited on children of the 20's through 50's, and the book does a good job painting a vivid and believable picture. For example, ... Read More
Rating: - Riveting. You Won't Put it Down!
Horrifying (entombment in an iron lung); uplifting (the indomitable human spirit); suspenseful (which tortoise won?); and forboding (the origin of AIDS?). Riveting. You won't put it down!
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