Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader

For nearly thirty years, anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has traveled to some of the most impoverished places on earth to bring comfort and the best possible medical care to the poorest of the poor. Driven by his stated intent to "make human rights substantial," Farmer has treated sufferers of AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru, Siberia, and Rwanda.

In 1989, with several colleagues, he founded Partners In Health to provide high-quality care with impressive cure rates. Throughout his career, Farmer has written eloquently and extensively on these efforts. Partner to the Poorcollects his writings from 1988 to 2009 on anthropology, epidemiology, health care for the global poor, and international public health policy, providing a broad overview of his work.

Paul Farmer connects material and ideas from scientific, medical, sociological, anthropological, and literary fields and from personal and professional experience on several continents over several decades, always privileging the perspectives of the poor thereby providing many fresh ways for readers to understand the relationship between the rich world and the poor world. And this textbook provides the reader with new ways to think about reducing inequalities between those two worlds.

It illuminates the depth and impact of Farmer's contributions and demonstrates how, over time, this unassuming and dedicated doctor has fundamentally changed the way we think about health, international aid, and social justice.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this textbook will be donated to Partners In Health.

Author Biography

Paul Farmer is the Presley Professor of Social Medicine and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a founding director of Partners In Health. His books include AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and Geography of Blame, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, and Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, all from UC Press.

Haun Saussy is Bird White Housum Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University.

Tracy Kidder is the author of many acclaimed books, including Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World.

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