Medicine and the Body
- Simon Williams - University of Warwick, UK
This is a clear, well-written account of medicine, health and the body. Taking recent debates on the body and society as its point of departure, the book critically reexamines a series of embodied issues and emotional agendas in health and illness. Included here are cutting edge discussions and debates concerning:
- the medicalized body
- health inequalities
- childhood and ageing
- the dilemmas of high-tech medicine
- chronic illness and disability
- caring and (bio)ethics
- sleep, death and dying
- the body in late/postmodernity
Written in an accessible, engaging style, with many original and innovative insights, the book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students alike, and to researchers and lecturers with an interest in the embodied agendas of health and medicine in the new millennium.
`An intelligent and informed account of medical sociology. Simon Williams has produced an original and comprehensive sociological statement of the centrality of the body to an understanding of medicine, health and illness. His scope is impressive, including among other topics sleep, childhood, disability and ageing. It will shape future teaching and research in the field of health and illness' - Bryan S Turner, Professor of Sociology, University of Cambridge
I don’t think I would use this book for further or higher education level study. It is very factual and evidenced based, which is great if that is what you are after. However, it is very word heavy with no pictures – overall not what I was looking for and it requires a lot of intense studying.
The content of the textbook is good, with relevant evidence and references to back up studies that were conducted.
