Volume 46, Number 2 · February 4, 1999
Blood & Money
By Helen Epstein
Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce
by Douglas Starr
Knopf, 441 pp., $27.50
Human history is full of blood, and it has not only been spilled on battlefields and in dark alleys. Blood itself has had an active part in world events. In his fascinating book Blood: A History of Medicine and Commerce, Douglas Starr explains, among other things, how American expertise in blood banking helped the Allies win World War II in Europe and how controversy over a shady plasma bank in Managua, known locally as the casa de vampiros, sparked the Nicaraguan civil war in the 1970s.
Review, 3849 words
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