Inflamed

A work of exhilarating scope and relevance. What a rare and powerful experience to feel a book in your very body.

Health is not something we can attain as individuals, for ourselves, hermetically sealed off from the world around us. An injury to one is an injury to all.

Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed. In this boldly original book, renowned political economist Raj Patel teams up with physician Rupa Marya to illuminate the hidden relationships between human health and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. In doing so, they offer a radical new cure: the deep medicine of decolonisation.

Journeying through the human body - our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems - Marya and Patel show how inflammation is connected not just to the food that we eat, the air that we breathe, and access to healthcare, but is also linked to the traumatic events we experience and the very model of health that doctors practice: one which takes things apart, rather than seeking to bring ideas and lived experiences together.

Combining the latest scholarship on globalization and biology with the stories of patients in marginalized communities and the wisdom of Indigenous groups, Inflamed points the way towards a medicine that heals what has been divided and has the potential to transform not only our bodies but the world.