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The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide Audiobook
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From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society.
Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone.
Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the listener with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings.
In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books
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“Narrated with intensity and empathy by author Steven W. Thrasher, the production takes the perspectives of victims, their friends, and other activists…Thanks to Thrasher and his memorable performance, these previously unheard stories are given a voice.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“[A] wide-ranging examination of how our society’s ills exacerbate those of our bodies.”
— Jezebel -
"A remarkable quality of Thrasher’s book is his attentiveness to injustice on a large scale as well as in its most intimate forms…[making] the case for urgent change."
— New Republic -
“Illustrates that the problem isn’t new, and that it is embedded more deeply than many of us realize…Brings figures from the viral underclass to life in this engaging, enraging read."
— Boston Globe -
“Thrasher is an excellent investigator. The reader sees how and why the narratives develop in particular ways, and feels fury and despair, as well as occasional glimmers of hope.”
— Nature
Awards
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An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick
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A New York Times Pick of Best Books Now in Paperback
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Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
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Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
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One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2023
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Winner of the 2022 POZ Award for Best in Literature
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A Vulture.com Pick
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About Steven W. Thrasher
Jonathan D. Spence is Sterling Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of a distinguished body of work on the history of modern China. Among his most recent books are God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan and The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds.