The Antibiotic Era

Podolsky's historical accounts challenge readers to be mindful of what continue to be serious concerns within the global public health system.

The need for an assessment such as The Antibiotic Era has never been greater... This book's value will only increase over time, and is recommended beyond health collections alone.

The Antibiotic Era should be mandatory reading for those in the medical profession and is well worth the steep learning curve for those with an interest in the field but from a different background.

... an in-depth and well researched book.

This book is carefully researched and persuasively argued... it is a fascinating historical analysis...

We can thank the author for the effort and hope the lessons are duly noted and learned. This is an essential addition to every academic library in the health care professions.

Readers unfamiliar with the new pharma history will find The Antibiotic Era an excellent introduction to the field, while those well read in the subject will find plenty to hold their interest.

[Podolsky] brilliantly reconstructs the history of how the debate on antibiotics regulation was crucial in the making of drug regulation legislation in the USA...The Antibiotics Era is an excellent book and it will clearly become a reference for all scholars interested in the history of twentieth-century medicine and drug relation.

... this is a fabulous book. This title contributes to a fundamental shift in the writing of the history of medicine. It tackles issues of therapeutics, and it also narrates the contemporary history of medicine, for which actors, debates, and interests are similar to those today. Scott Podolsky deserves praise as one of the drivers of this fundamental shift in the way the history of medicine is written. This publication deserves to gain the widest possible readership.

Carefully researched and persuasively argued, The Antibiotic Era illustrates the power of historical analysis to enhance our understanding of the present. Podolsky traces debates over rational antibiotic therapy and examines actors and outcomes from the 1950s to our current concerns about antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the complex context of global health.

Anyone who knows antibiotics will want to read this book, a brilliant, entertaining exposition of 'antibiotic reformers' as described by a gifted historian which focuses on the controversies and consequences stemming from the acceptance of antibiotics into clinical practice.

A well-written and exhaustively researched book that compellingly details the history of the successes, failures, and limits of antibiotic reform. Scott Podolsky marshals an impressive array of archival sources to critically engage a subject that holds significant policy and public health relevance. The Antibiotic Era is an original and valuable contribution to the literature on the history of pharmaceuticals, late twentieth-century medicine, and the burgeoning field of global health studies.

Podolsky's fascinating book should serve as a reminder to physicians, researchers, and policy makers of how our predecessors dealt with the study and treatment of serious and life-threatening diseases, and how regulatory and policy responses based on adequate and well-controlled studies were designed to protect patients and save lives.

A masterly account of the efforts of reformers to counter the seductive marketing and irrational use of antibiotics in the hope of attenuating the inevitable emergence of resistant microorganisms.  We are now in the catch-up phase of the current 'antibiotic resistance crisis.'  This important book tells us how we got here.