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Medicine and the Body
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Medicine and the Body

First Edition


March 2003 | 264 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
`An intelligent and informed account of medical sociology. Simon Williams has produced an original and comprehensive sociological statement of the centrality of the body to an understanding of medicine, health and illness. His scope is impressive... It will shape future teaching and research in the field of health and illness' - Bryan S Turner, Professor of Sociology, University of Cambridge

This is a clear, well-written account of medicine, health and the body. Taking recent debates on the body and society as its point of departure, the book critically reexamines a series of embodied issues and emotional agendas in health and illness. Included here are cutting edge discussions and debates concerning:

- the medicalized body

- health inequalities

- childhood and ageing

- the dilemmas of high-tech medicine

- chronic illness and disability

- caring and (bio)ethics

- sleep, death and dying

- the body in late/postmodernity

Written in an accessible, engaging style, with many original and innovative insights, the book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students alike, and to researchers and lecturers with an interest in the embodied agendas of health and medicine in the new millennium.

 
Introduction
Medical Sociology in the New Millennium

 
 
The Biomedical Body
Reductionism, Constructionism and Beyond

 
 
What Is Health? Thinking through the Boundaries of the Body
 
`Structuring' Bodies
Emotions, Inequalities and Health

 
 
Children, Ageing and Health
Bodies across the Lifecourse

 
 
Bodily Dys-Order
Chronic Illness a Biographical Disruption?

 
 
Dormant/Mortal Bodies
Sleep, Death and Dying in Late/Postmodernity

 
 
Reason, Emotion and `Mental' Health
Where Do We Draw the Line?

 
 
Hi-Tech Bodies
From Corporeality to Hyperreality?

 
 
Caring Bodies/Embodied Ethics
 
Conclusions
The Challenges Ahead

 

`An intelligent and informed account of medical sociology. Simon Williams has produced an original and comprehensive sociological statement of the centrality of the body to an understanding of medicine, health and illness. His scope is impressive, including among other topics sleep, childhood, disability and ageing. It will shape future teaching and research in the field of health and illness' - Bryan S Turner, Professor of Sociology, University of Cambridge


I don’t think I would use this book for further or higher education level study. It is very factual and evidenced based, which is great if that is what you are after. However, it is very word heavy with no pictures – overall not what I was looking for and it requires a lot of intense studying.
The content of the textbook is good, with relevant evidence and references to back up studies that were conducted.

Ms lisa oneill
Education, City College Norwich
March 27, 2023

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Paperback
ISBN: 9780761956396
£58.00

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ISBN: 9780761956389
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