The Emperor of All Maladies - by Siddhartha Mukherjee

About the Book

"The Emperor of All Maladies" reads like a novel, but it deals with real people and real successes, as well as with the many false notions and false leads. Not only will the book bring cancer research and cancer biology to the lay public, it will help attract young researchers to a field that is at once exciting, heart wrenching, and important.--Donald Berry, Ph.D., Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas.

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 100 BOOK OF THE CENTURY * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIME ALL-TIME 100 NONFICTION BOOK

Updated with FOUR NEW MAJOR CHAPTERS illuminating the new developments in cancer detection, prevention, treatment, and understanding in the fifteen years since the book's first publication, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer.

Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies became an instant classic when it was published in 2010. A magnificent, humane "biography" of cancer--from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic 20th century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence--The Emperor of All Maladies is one of the most highly acclaimed books of its time.

In the years since Mukherjee dazzled readers with The Emperor of All Maladies, much has changed in the universe of cancer--in our understanding of its causes; in our attempts to prevent it; and in the revolutionary new treatments. In four profound and revelatory new chapters--essentially a new book about cancer--he illuminates this disease with both a bird's eye view of the landscape and an acute focus on the role of the cell. He also looks at imminent new studies--and to the future.

Riveting, audacious, and now more urgent than ever in this vast update, The Emperor of All Maladies is a masterpiece.

Review Quotes

"Mukherjee brings an impressive balance of empathy and dispassion to this instantly essential piece of medical journalism."
--Time

"A meticulously researched, panoramic history . . . What makes Mukherjee's narrative so remarkable is that he imbues decades of painstaking laboratory investigation with the suspense of a mystery novel and urgency of a thriller. . . . He possesses a striking gift for carving some of science's most abstruse concepts into forms as easily understood and reconfigured as a child's wooden blocks."
--The Boston Globe

"Riveting and powerful . . . Mukherjee's extraordinary book might stimulate a wider discussion of how to wisely allocate our precious health care resources."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Remarkable . . . The reader devours this fascinating book . . . Mukherjee is a clear and determined writer. . . . An unusually humble, insightful book."
--Los Angeles Times

"Extraordinary . . . So often physician writers attempt the delicacy of using their patients as a mirror to their own humanity. Mukherjee does the opposite. His book is not built to show us the good doctor struggling with tough decisions, but ourselves."
--John Freeman, NPR

"Now and then a writer comes along who helps us fathom both the intricacies of a scientific specialty and its human meaning. Lewis Thomas, Sherwin Nuland, and Oliver Sacks come to mind. Add to their company Siddhartha Mukherjee."
--Elle

"Rich and engrossing . . . With the perceptiveness and patience of a true scientist, [Mukherjee] begins to weave these individual threads into a coherent and engrossing narrative."
--The Economist

"A brilliant, riveting history of the disease . . . Threaded throughout, and propelling the narrative forward, are the affecting tales of Mukherjee's own patients."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Ambitious . . . Mukherjee has a storyteller's flair and a gift for translating complex medical concepts into simple language."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Cancer has never been as fully explored as in Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee's fascinating and moving history."
--The Daily Beast

"With epic scope and passionate pen, The Emperor of All Maladies boldly addresses, then breaks down the monolith of disease."
--The Onion A.V. Club

"Informative, elegant, comprehensive, and lucid."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Mukherjee's elegant prose animates the science."
--Bloomberg News

"Brilliant and riveting."
--Associated Press

"[A] brilliant book."
--Larry King

"A magnificent book."
--Sanjay Gupta, M.D., CNN

"An ambitious scientific, political, and cultural history."
--Slate.com

"Intensely readable."
--New York Post

"Impressive."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Mukherjee . . . writes with supreme authority."
-- The Seattle Times

"Mukherjee makes us understand that along with our terrible losses, great gains have been made."
--Newsday

"Eminently readable . . . A surprisingly accessible and encouraging narrative."
--Booklist (starred review)

"A beautifully written account of the ingenuity, hubris, courage, and utter confusion humankind has brought to its attempts to grapple with cancer."
--Maclean's

"Future biographers and historians of the disease will labor from deep with the long shadow cast by Siddhartha Mukherjee's remarkable The Emperor of All Maladies. . . . A vivid and profoundly engaging read."
--BookPage

"Sweeping . . . Mukherjee's formidable intelligence and compassion produce a stunning account."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies left me shaken, fascinated, and not depressed, because he gives a face to our old enemy, cancer."
--Emma Donoghue, author of Room

"Sid Mukherjee's book is a pleasure to read, if that is the right word. . . . His book is the clearest account I have read on this subject. With The Emperor of All Maladies, he joins that small fraternity of practicing doctors who cannot just talk about their profession but write about it."
--Tony Judt, author of The Memory Chalet

"Rarely have the science and poetry of illness been so elegantly braided together as they are in this erudite, engrossing, kind book."
--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon

"At once learned and skeptical, unsentimental and humane, The Emperor of All Maladies is that rarest of things--a noble book."
--David Rieff, author of Swimming in a Sea of Death

"A magisterial, wise, and deeply human piece of writing."
--Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost and Bury the Chains

"The Emperor of All Maladies beautifully describes the nature of cancer from a patient's perspective and how basic research has opened the door to understanding this disease."
--Bert Vogelstein, director, Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins University

"A labor of love . . . as comprehensive as possible."
--George Canellos, M.D., William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

"An elegant . . . tour de force. The Emperor of All Maladies reads like a novel . . . but it deals with real people and real successes, as well as with the many false notions and false leads. Not only will the book bring cancer research and cancer biology to the lay public, it will help attract young researchers to a field that is at once exciting and heart wrenching . . . and important."
--Donald Berry, Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas

About the Author

Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Song of the Cell, The Gene: An Intimate History, a #1 New York Times bestseller; The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction; and The Laws of Medicine. He is the editor of Best Science Writing 2013. Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. In 2023, he was elected as a new member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has published articles in many journals, including Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters. Visit his website at: SiddharthaMukherjee.com.