Unequal Cures: Public Health and Political Change in Bolivia, 1900 – 1950

Despite the title, this volume actually deals more with public health than with political change, and this is probably a good thing given that the sections on public health are more convincingly argued than those on politics. A core goal of this book is to examine and evaluate the Bolivian public health-care situation from 1900 to 1950. The author identifies key health concerns, analyzes their social and economic origins, and assesses the progress made in alleviating them. In this the author succeeds admirably. Zulawski also seeks to place her book within the context of a relatively new approach to the history of medicine, the “literary turn” taken by numerous writers over the past couple of decades. With this she succeeds far better than most, wisely situating her exploration of language and meanings within the changing landscape of Bolivian society, economy, and politics. However,...