Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman
Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity president. But when he was a medical student and doctor, his politics began to change, and soon he was providing covert care to members of revolutionary groups like the Weather Underground and becoming increasingly radicalized by his experiences at the Wounded Knee takeover, at the Attica Prison uprising, and at health clinics for the poor. When the government went after him, he went underground and participated in bombings of government buildings. He was eventually captured and served eight years in some of America's worst penitentiaries, barely surviving two rounds of cancer. After his release in 1992, he returned to medical practice and became an HIV/AIDS physician, teacher, and global health activist. In the final years of his life, he successfully worked to change U.S. policy, making AIDS treatment more widely available in the global south and saving millions of lives around the world.

Using Berkman's unfinished prison memoir, FBI records, letters, and hundreds of interviews, Susan M. Reverby sheds fascinating light on questions of political violence and revolutionary zeal in her account of Berkman's extraordinary transformation from doctor to co-conspirator for justice.
1133507758
Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman
Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity president. But when he was a medical student and doctor, his politics began to change, and soon he was providing covert care to members of revolutionary groups like the Weather Underground and becoming increasingly radicalized by his experiences at the Wounded Knee takeover, at the Attica Prison uprising, and at health clinics for the poor. When the government went after him, he went underground and participated in bombings of government buildings. He was eventually captured and served eight years in some of America's worst penitentiaries, barely surviving two rounds of cancer. After his release in 1992, he returned to medical practice and became an HIV/AIDS physician, teacher, and global health activist. In the final years of his life, he successfully worked to change U.S. policy, making AIDS treatment more widely available in the global south and saving millions of lives around the world.

Using Berkman's unfinished prison memoir, FBI records, letters, and hundreds of interviews, Susan M. Reverby sheds fascinating light on questions of political violence and revolutionary zeal in her account of Berkman's extraordinary transformation from doctor to co-conspirator for justice.
32.5 In Stock
Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman

Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman

by Susan M. Reverby
Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman

Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman

by Susan M. Reverby

Hardcover

$32.50 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity president. But when he was a medical student and doctor, his politics began to change, and soon he was providing covert care to members of revolutionary groups like the Weather Underground and becoming increasingly radicalized by his experiences at the Wounded Knee takeover, at the Attica Prison uprising, and at health clinics for the poor. When the government went after him, he went underground and participated in bombings of government buildings. He was eventually captured and served eight years in some of America's worst penitentiaries, barely surviving two rounds of cancer. After his release in 1992, he returned to medical practice and became an HIV/AIDS physician, teacher, and global health activist. In the final years of his life, he successfully worked to change U.S. policy, making AIDS treatment more widely available in the global south and saving millions of lives around the world.

Using Berkman's unfinished prison memoir, FBI records, letters, and hundreds of interviews, Susan M. Reverby sheds fascinating light on questions of political violence and revolutionary zeal in her account of Berkman's extraordinary transformation from doctor to co-conspirator for justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469656250
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 06/08/2020
Series: Justice, Power, and Politics
Pages: 408
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Susan M. Reverby is the Marion Butler McLean Professor Emerita in the History of Ideas and professor emerita of women's and gender studies at Wellesley College. She is the author of Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This biography of Alan Berkman is masterful and completely absorbing. What an enthralling journey through the revolutionary politics of the 1960s and 70s and beyond. Thanks to Susan Reverby for bringing it to life.—Susan Ware, author of Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote



From suburbia and the Ivy League to the radical underground and the global fight against AIDS, Alan Berkman lived a fascinating life. With erudition and clarity, Susan Reverby recounts Berkman's many astonishing encounters: with revolutionaries and the police, with prison, and with cancer. This excellent biography of the revolutionary doctor provides a unique glimpse into the last half century of American radicalism.—Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews