For centuries, tuberculosis has ravaged cities and plagued the human body, its prevention slowed by superstitions and folk remedies. Even though the West has brought it under control, Vidya Krishnan points out, the cure was never widely available to black and brown nations. While tracing the history of the disease from the slums of 19th-century New York to modern Mumbai, Krishnan Krishnan discusses the many factors that have allowed an aggressive, drug resistant strain of TB to threaten the world again.

"A penetrating social history of a virulent disease…. A timely, significant analysis of the dire consequences of public health failures."—Kirkus Reviews