The breast cancer wars : hope, fear, and the pursuit of a cure in twentieth-century America / Barron H. Lerner.

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

xvi, 383 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 298-369) and index.

Establishing a tradition : William Halsted and the radical mastectomy -- Inventing a curable disease : breast cancer control after World War II -- The scalpel triumphant : radical surgery in the 1950s -- A heretical interlude : biology as fate -- Reality check : breast cancer treatment and randomized controlled trials -- "I alone am in charge of my body" : breast cancer patients in revolt -- No shrinking violet : Rose Kushner and the maturation of breast cancer activism -- Seek and ye shall find : mammography praised and scorned -- "The world has passed us by" : science, activism, and the fall of the radical mastectomy -- The past as prologue : what can the history of breast cancer teach us? -- Risky business : breast cancer and genetics.