| Five books, published between 1995 and 1998, permit an analysis that relates the rising rates of cancer to the developments that propelled America to world power in the 20th century. The author suggests that the American Century cultured cancer in two senses. First, it is shown that the major developments of the 20th century, the same developments that made the century American, had cancer as their shadow; they provided the fertile ground, the culture or media, in which cancers would develop. Second, it is argued that the science used to understand and treat cancer was, first and foremost, American science, science shaped by the American cultural context. Thus, cancer has been cultured in the 20th century by having been givena social meaning. |