Praise for the 3-volume second edition of The Social Medicine Reader:
“A superb collection of essays that illuminate the role of medicine in modern society. Students and general readers are not likely to find anything better.”—Arnold S. Relman, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Praise for the first edition:
“This reviewer strongly recommends The Social Medicine Reader to the attention of medical educators.”—Samuel W. Bloom, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

Volume 2:

Ranging from a historical look at eugenics to an ethnographic description of parents receiving the news that their child has Down syndrome, from analyses of inequalities in the delivery of health services to an examination of the meaning of race in genomics research, and from a meditation on the loneliness of the long-term caregiver to a reflection on what children owe their elderly parents, this volume explores health and illness. Social and Cultural Contributions to Health, Difference, and Inequality brings together seventeen pieces new to this edition of The Social Medicine Reader and five pieces that appeared in the first edition. It focuses on how difference and disability are defined and experienced in contemporary America, how the social categories commonly used to predict disease outcomes—such as gender, race and ethnicity, and social class—have become contested terrain, and why some groups have more limited access to health care services than others. Juxtaposing first-person narratives with empirical and conceptual studies, this compelling collection draws on several disciplines, including cultural and medical anthropology, sociology, and the history of medicine.

Contributors: Laurie K. Abraham, Raj Bhopal, Ami S. Brodoff, Daniel Callahan, David Diamond, Liam Donaldson, Alice Dreger, Sue E. Estroff, Paul Farmer, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Jerome Groopman, Gail E. Henderson, Linda M. Hunt, Barbara A. Koenig, Donald R. Lannin, Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Carol Levine, Judith Lorber, Nancy Mairs, Holly F. Mathews, James P. Mitchell, Joanna Mountain, Alan R. Nelson, Martin S. Pernick, Rayna Rapp, Sally L. Satel, Robert S. Schwartz, Brian D. Smedley, Adrienne Y. Stith, Sharon Sytsma, Gordon Weaver, Bruce Wilson, Irving Kenneth Zola

Gail E. Henderson, Associate Professor of Social Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Chinese Hospital: A Socialist Work Unit.

Sue E. Estroff is Professor of Social Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community.

Larry R. Churchill is Professor of and Chair of the Department of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Self-Interest and Universal Health Care: Why Well-Insured Americans Should Support Coverage for Everyone and Rationing Health Care in America: Perceptions and Principles of Justice.

Nancy M. P. King, Associate Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of Making Sense of Advance Directives.

Jonathan Oberlander is an associate professor of social medicine and an adjunct associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ronald P. Strauss is Professor of Dental Ecology and Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is author of numerous articles on social and ethical issues in the care of chronic illness.