Cancer
Sunday, May 13th, 2007 @ 21:58
The Evolutionary Legacy
by Mel Greaves (2000)
In an age where the media is full of unrealistic hyperbole of yet another breakthrough of “cancer cure”, this book offers you a comprehensive analysis of the disease with a lucidity that will engage both layman and specialist readers alike. Drawing from the ‘Darwinian medicine’ principle, Professor Greaves tells the historical and biological complexity of cancer with erudition and sensitive wit.
Professor Greaves debunks the common perception of cancer as a new affliction, a sad by-product of modernity, giving the reader historical anecdotes of cancer incidents (with treatment as bizarre to our modern eyes as, some might say, the contemporary ones), and lucidly describes the plethora of multi-layered pathways and networks, the ill-suited social behaviours leading to nature-nurture mismatches, and yes, chances.
The book is sparsely illustrated and far from encyclopaedic, but it is exactly its balance and selectiveness that forms part of its merit. With the overwhelming overload of complex and specialised information available, it is easy to “lose the bigger picture” — this book gives you that of a complex subject with accessible fluency and authority.
