Dying in the City of the Blues

“Wailoo’s comprehensive telling . . . is the definitive story of race and health in the United States.” — Library Journal

“A compelling demonstration of how powerful and significant [the] underappreciated interaction between illness and race has been. . . . This unassuming masterpiece of revelation focuses a new, more precise lens on the intersection of race, illness and politics.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A well-documented, sophisticated study by an important scholar in the field of race and American medicine. . . . This first-rate study of how a disease discourse reflects social relations beautifully demonstrates the significance of the politics of race and health to American history and the contributions that historical analysis can make to contemporary health care debates.” — Journal of American History

“An important contribution to the larger project of documenting the health history of black people in the United States.” — Bulletin of the History of Medicine##

“When one finishes the book and reflects back on its contents one realizes just how rich Wailoo’s approach to his subject is, how much he has covered, how skillfully he has informed, and how nicely he has used the story of [sickle cell anemia] to tell the stories of race, politics, and health in twentieth-century American society.” — Medical History

“The power of black bodies and their afflictions to 'tell a moral tale' about changing racial relations in US society is bound to fascinate, infuriate and inspire reads of Dying in the City of the Blues . . . . This remarkable text on the social construction of the illness speaks of how ancient, bloody, brutal and enduring the facts of racial disparity in health and care really are in the American experience . . . . What makes this book such an achievement is the author’s eye and ear for luminous detail.” — Nature

“Wailoo’s trenchant analysis will fascinate anyone interested in southern, medical, or African American history, or intrigued by the rise of identity politics and the power of disease-based political interest groups. . . . An important book. Wailoo reminds us that all knowledge is socially constructed, that local studies can offer insights into national issues, and that the personal is political in America.” — Journal of Southern History

“Resonates well beyond blacks, Memphis, and sickle cell anemia to speak directly to America’s current heath care crisis.” — Texas Observer

“Wailoo emphasizes that medical history should attend to the experience of illness by people as much as it explains diseases and their cures.” — Virginia Quarterly Review

“An informative, though unsettling, scholarly account of the African American life experience throughout the 20th century. . . . [Wailoo] has provided great insight to the history of race relations in this country and its impact on health care.” — CHOICE