---
product_id: 79382234
title: "EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES"
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---

# EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES

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EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES : Mukherjee, Siddhartha: desertcart.in: Books

Review: An Epic in Elegance: The Literary Power of Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies - From the very first pages, The Emperor of All Maladies captivates you with a rare blend of scientific clarity, historical sweep, and deeply human narrative. This is not just a medical history — it is a story of hope, suffering, reinvention, and the relentless struggle between life and disease. Beyond its scientific depth and historical scope, the book also shines as a work of literature. The prose is never dull — it is vivid, elegant, and often poetic. Siddhartha Mukherjee transforms what could have been a dense medical chronicle into an engrossing narrative, enriched with imagery and metaphor. His phrasing lingers long after the page is turned. When reflecting on a missed scientific opportunity, he observes: “The two halves of cancer, cause and cure, having feasted and been feted together, sped off in separate taxis into the night.” He defines cancer with striking clarity as “…where cells acquire an autonomous will to increase” and issues the ominous reminder that “Cancer is intrinsically loaded into our genes, waiting for activation.” Lines such as these reveal Mukherjee’s rare gift for making science not only understandable, but luminous and memorable. What Makes It Stand Out 1. Brilliant balance of science and story The author weaves detailed biomedical content (cell growth, oncogenes, molecular pathways) with gripping human stories of patients, doctors, and researchers. The technical details never overwhelm — they enrich the narrative, letting you see cancer not as abstraction, but as a tragic force that touches lives. 2. Immense sweep of history The book traces cancer’s battle from early observations through decades of experimentation, innovation, failures, and breakthroughs. You sense how medicine evolved — the shifting paradigms, the false leads, the incremental advances. This gives one a profound appreciation for how fragile and tentative progress often is. 3. Philosophical resonance The book frames cancer as not merely medical but existential. “Cancer is stitched into our genome… a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves.” Mukherjee makes us ask: can we ever fully eradicate cancer without also eradicating the very processes — aging, repair, regeneration — that sustain life? This questioning elevates the book from a chronicle to a meditation. A key insight: that cancer is, in some way, entangled with our very nature — embedded in processes of growth, aging, repair, mutation. 4. Moments of human resilience Between the science, there are stories of patients, physicians, and scientists — people who persevere, fail, adjust course, sometimes triumph. These human threads provide an emotional anchor. You care. You cheer. The personal dimension is not an afterthought — it is integral. 5. Impressive clarity and structure Even when describing complex processes (oncogenes, chemotherapy, genetic mutation), the author keeps explanations lucid and accessible. “Science embodies the human desire to understand nature; medicine, then, is fundamentally a technological art.” With sentences like this, the book feels like a guided journey, not a lecture. Standout Quotes: “Cancer is stitched into our genome… a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves.” “We can rid ourselves of cancer only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth — aging, regeneration, healing, reproduction.” “Science embodies the human desire to understand nature; medicine, then, is fundamentally a technological art.” “Perhaps cancer defines the inherent outer limit of our survival.” In Short: This book deserves five stars. It is rare to find a work that is at once scientifically ambitious and deeply humane, historically comprehensive and emotionally gripping. If you care about medicine, human suffering, scientific ambition, or just the fragility and resilience of life, this will stay with you long after the last page.
Review: Disturbing yet very informative read... - This book is an eye opener, chilling read and brings cancer into a fresh perspective which all of us want to avoid. The phrase out of sight out of mind is dismissed once you read this book. As someone without knowledge of medical science, I found this book easy to understand and follow yet it was one of the most difficult books to sit down and read, primarily due to the intensity of the subject. Many words or adjectives come to mind after reading this book, including detailed, long, very intense, upsetting, disturbing, depressing yet informative. I think the most accurate description would be highly informative. Author has filled the pages with years of experience and his complete knowledge of the subject. Reading this book ensures a better understanding of cancer and how it has affected the journey of medicine in treatment of cancer. From the beginning of the story Author dives into history of cancer and the way it is portrayed as the story goes, it seems more like an actual person and not an illness. More like a super powerful villain who is here for human extinction or advancement of human race. It’s literally do or die situation for human race against cancer. “In writing this book, I started off by imagining my project as a “history” of cancer. But it felt, inescapably, as if I were writing not about something but about someone. My subject daily morphed into something that resembled an individual—an enigmatic, if somewhat deranged, image in a mirror. This was not so much a medical history of an illness, but something more personal, more visceral: its biography.” –Siddhartha Mukherjee Author reveals how cancer has been around much longer than we thought by showing examples of exhumed corpses from ancient Egypt and other archeological sites. Once mankind realized how aggressive and fast growing cancer is, the historical treatments were equally zealous and intense with the goal to find a cure and get rid of the cancerous tissue as soon as they can. Cancer is an expansionist disease; it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeking “sanctuary” in one organ and then immigrating to another. It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively—at times, as if teaching us how to survive. To confront cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are.―Siddhartha Mukherjee The emperor of Maladies – the title captures ones interest and this no doubt has proven to a book which sticks with you even after you finish reading it. To conclude, the book sheds new light on the future of war on cancer, Medicine and science has come a long way in the past decades and new treatments continue to be discovered and tested. The war on cancer is far from over, however based on the knowledge from this history; we surely are equipped to face it head on. "We are so close to a cure for cancer. We lack only the will and the kind of money and comprehensive planning that went into putting a man on the moon" -Dr. Sidney Farber

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #279,744 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #102 in Biographies & Autobiographies (Books) #671 in History of Civilization & Culture #4,682 in Society & Culture (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 9,393 Reviews |

## Images

![EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91usu4BCD2L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Epic in Elegance: The Literary Power of Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies
*by H***K on 4 October 2025*

From the very first pages, The Emperor of All Maladies captivates you with a rare blend of scientific clarity, historical sweep, and deeply human narrative. This is not just a medical history — it is a story of hope, suffering, reinvention, and the relentless struggle between life and disease. Beyond its scientific depth and historical scope, the book also shines as a work of literature. The prose is never dull — it is vivid, elegant, and often poetic. Siddhartha Mukherjee transforms what could have been a dense medical chronicle into an engrossing narrative, enriched with imagery and metaphor. His phrasing lingers long after the page is turned. When reflecting on a missed scientific opportunity, he observes: “The two halves of cancer, cause and cure, having feasted and been feted together, sped off in separate taxis into the night.” He defines cancer with striking clarity as “…where cells acquire an autonomous will to increase” and issues the ominous reminder that “Cancer is intrinsically loaded into our genes, waiting for activation.” Lines such as these reveal Mukherjee’s rare gift for making science not only understandable, but luminous and memorable. What Makes It Stand Out 1. Brilliant balance of science and story The author weaves detailed biomedical content (cell growth, oncogenes, molecular pathways) with gripping human stories of patients, doctors, and researchers. The technical details never overwhelm — they enrich the narrative, letting you see cancer not as abstraction, but as a tragic force that touches lives. 2. Immense sweep of history The book traces cancer’s battle from early observations through decades of experimentation, innovation, failures, and breakthroughs. You sense how medicine evolved — the shifting paradigms, the false leads, the incremental advances. This gives one a profound appreciation for how fragile and tentative progress often is. 3. Philosophical resonance The book frames cancer as not merely medical but existential. “Cancer is stitched into our genome… a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves.” Mukherjee makes us ask: can we ever fully eradicate cancer without also eradicating the very processes — aging, repair, regeneration — that sustain life? This questioning elevates the book from a chronicle to a meditation. A key insight: that cancer is, in some way, entangled with our very nature — embedded in processes of growth, aging, repair, mutation. 4. Moments of human resilience Between the science, there are stories of patients, physicians, and scientists — people who persevere, fail, adjust course, sometimes triumph. These human threads provide an emotional anchor. You care. You cheer. The personal dimension is not an afterthought — it is integral. 5. Impressive clarity and structure Even when describing complex processes (oncogenes, chemotherapy, genetic mutation), the author keeps explanations lucid and accessible. “Science embodies the human desire to understand nature; medicine, then, is fundamentally a technological art.” With sentences like this, the book feels like a guided journey, not a lecture. Standout Quotes: “Cancer is stitched into our genome… a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves.” “We can rid ourselves of cancer only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth — aging, regeneration, healing, reproduction.” “Science embodies the human desire to understand nature; medicine, then, is fundamentally a technological art.” “Perhaps cancer defines the inherent outer limit of our survival.” In Short: This book deserves five stars. It is rare to find a work that is at once scientifically ambitious and deeply humane, historically comprehensive and emotionally gripping. If you care about medicine, human suffering, scientific ambition, or just the fragility and resilience of life, this will stay with you long after the last page.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Disturbing yet very informative read...
*by K***R on 22 April 2019*

This book is an eye opener, chilling read and brings cancer into a fresh perspective which all of us want to avoid. The phrase out of sight out of mind is dismissed once you read this book. As someone without knowledge of medical science, I found this book easy to understand and follow yet it was one of the most difficult books to sit down and read, primarily due to the intensity of the subject. Many words or adjectives come to mind after reading this book, including detailed, long, very intense, upsetting, disturbing, depressing yet informative. I think the most accurate description would be highly informative. Author has filled the pages with years of experience and his complete knowledge of the subject. Reading this book ensures a better understanding of cancer and how it has affected the journey of medicine in treatment of cancer. From the beginning of the story Author dives into history of cancer and the way it is portrayed as the story goes, it seems more like an actual person and not an illness. More like a super powerful villain who is here for human extinction or advancement of human race. It’s literally do or die situation for human race against cancer. “In writing this book, I started off by imagining my project as a “history” of cancer. But it felt, inescapably, as if I were writing not about something but about someone. My subject daily morphed into something that resembled an individual—an enigmatic, if somewhat deranged, image in a mirror. This was not so much a medical history of an illness, but something more personal, more visceral: its biography.” –Siddhartha Mukherjee Author reveals how cancer has been around much longer than we thought by showing examples of exhumed corpses from ancient Egypt and other archeological sites. Once mankind realized how aggressive and fast growing cancer is, the historical treatments were equally zealous and intense with the goal to find a cure and get rid of the cancerous tissue as soon as they can. Cancer is an expansionist disease; it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeking “sanctuary” in one organ and then immigrating to another. It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively—at times, as if teaching us how to survive. To confront cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are.―Siddhartha Mukherjee The emperor of Maladies – the title captures ones interest and this no doubt has proven to a book which sticks with you even after you finish reading it. To conclude, the book sheds new light on the future of war on cancer, Medicine and science has come a long way in the past decades and new treatments continue to be discovered and tested. The war on cancer is far from over, however based on the knowledge from this history; we surely are equipped to face it head on. "We are so close to a cure for cancer. We lack only the will and the kind of money and comprehensive planning that went into putting a man on the moon" -Dr. Sidney Farber

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Almost Definitive Read on Cancer
*by A***A on 13 January 2021*

My first introduction to the dreaded disease of cancer was through movies, where the hero bleeds through his nose, wraps a shawl and goes around with unshaven face, singing sad songs about his plight. My mother’s narrations about her elder sister’s traumatic experience with breast cancer and resultant mastectomy at a young age didn’t make much of an impact on me. As I grew up, there were so many characters with cancer in so many movies that the word cancer itself started to feel like those foreign locations that the lead characters go to for their duets – exotic, intriguing, yet faraway, having nothing to do with me. But as I matured into adulthood, I started seeing relatives, families of friends and colleagues bear the brunt of this ominous disease. My brief volunteering with an NGO that works for cancer patients brought me face to face with the seriousness of this scourge of humans. Young children suffering from leukemia, men in their early twenties fighting lung cancer caused by smoking, elderly people disfigured by throat cancer due to tobacco use - cancer was no longer exotic and faraway. It was close and gross. When recently someone near and dear was diagnosed with cancer, I felt my curiosity piqued. I was looking for resources to learn more about this disease and do what I can to spread awareness. That’s how I found this book. And, what a worthy primer this turned out to be! Cancer is not a modern illness. Its ancientness parallels that of our own. For millennia, people have suffered from and succumbed to cancer. But what makes this dreaded disease unique is its ability to evolve at the same rate as we do. Every time we find a cure and hope to kill this disease forever, cancer evolves and moves the bull’s eye. To borrow an idea from the author, imagine an Achilles whose vulnerability shifts someplace else, just as you target an arrow at his heel. All those centuries of painstaking research has taught us one thing – this disease emerges from within. While external agents – like viruses and carcinogens - play a crucial role in waking this demon from its slumber, cancer is something internalized. It is our own body cells gone rogue, disobeying the lifecycle of birth-growth-decline. In a cruel twist of fate, our own body cells, nano-representations of our own selves, find a mutated vigor for ‘life’, start proliferating so profusely that they end up killing us, their collective image. Killing a harmful virus or bacteria has been relatively easier, because they have definite shape, purpose and, especially, are apart from us. But cancer is a part of us, our own cells, our genes, DNAs gone rogue. Not just that. Each of these mutations takes its own unique form as there are individuals. Cancer isn’t one single disease to find a cure against. It is a bunch of mutations, the perverted race of cells to proliferate and spread all over. This book taught me those things in an intense way. Starting from the earliest mentions of this disease in history, nearly 2500 years ago, to the latest development in the field of oncology, this book tries to light up a very vast area. And, it succeeds too. The tug of war between cancer and science, the misunderstandings, poorly designed treatments, lessons learnt, sacrifices by patients as well as physicians, their tenacity in the face of adversity, emotional / physical reliefs brought by discovery of cures, relapses and remissions, egos and ebullience of the people involved, this book tells it all. If you are looking to learn what cancer is and what a devastating trail it has left all through the annals of mankind, then this is a book you must start with. The sheer effort and research that fills these pages is astounding. Dr. Mukherjee has put his heart and soul into this book. The book is comprehensive but not complete though. For example, the book doesn’t dwell into ovarian cancer, something that I was so keen to learn about. The book doesn’t provide any advice on how to prevent cancer, if at all it is possible, or what kinds of lifestyles are prone to the risk of it. But, of course, the good doctor promptly justifies his reasons in the annexures. This book doesn’t tell you everything that you would like to know about cancer. But it will tell you all the basics that you need to know about it. If you are pursuing the subject with curiosity, this is a good book to begin with. Not an easy read, but definitely worth the time. As I finished reading and sat staring at the covers, I had this strange emotion – in their traits of reproducing profusely, migrating to wherever possible, reshaping the landscape of their destination (organ), and increasing ability to defy death that results in the ultimate demise of the host organism, isn’t cancer quite akin to us humans? Are cancer cells the microcosmic parallels to what we humans are to the macrocosm, i.e., the Universe?! Who knows?! May be, we are!

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
- The Gene: An Intimate History
- The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

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