Written together with political ecologist, food systems activist and policy professor Raj Patel, Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice offers a bold new analysis of health and medicine, for people and the planet.
“Science and medicine are often treated as fields that are subtracted from social movements, separate from the struggle for power that billions of human beings are embroiled in and abstracted from the material conditions around us. Luckily for us, Rupa Marya and Raj Patel are out here making these connections and encouraging us to see these as processes we all must take ownership of as we fight to have control of our surroundings. This book is on fire.”
—Boots Riley, frontperson for The Coup and writer/director of “Sorry to Bother You”
“Physician Marya, cofounder of the Do No Harm Coalition, and University of Texas research professor Patel (The Value of Nothing) examine the social and environmental causes of ill health in this thought-provoking treatise . . . a persuasive argument for the need to address the systemic problems that plague people’s minds and bodies.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A critique of the wreckage of capitalism and colonialism for our time–beautifully written, storytelling at its best. This book can change your life.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
“A passionate exploration of world poverty, racism, injustice, and colonialism that draws a parallel to inflammation. . .thought-provoking, knowledgeable, and ripe for debate and further study.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A work of exhilarating scope and relevance to this infected moment in the body politic. Inflamed mixes medicine, argument, and metaphor into a post-pandemic poultice: reading it is the first step in the deep medicine it prescribes. What a rare and powerful experience to feel a book in your very body.”
—Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
“At last! A book about medicine and healthcare that is holistic in the broadest sense in that it integrates histories of colonialism, conflict and inequality with alternative forms of knowledge. And all that while remaining compellingly readable and engaging.”
—Amitav Ghosh, author of Jungle Nama
“Inflammation is both the metaphor and the stated subject of this ambitious interdisciplinary tome co-written by Patel, a journalist and activist, and Marya, a physician and composer. Together they map the connections between public health, social injustice, economic disparities, climate change, and ancestral trauma, making the case that our crappy world needs a new medical paradigm.”
—Molly Young, Vulture