An Ungovernable Foe

Steven Epstein, author of The Quest for Sexual Health: How an Elusive Ideal Has Transformed Science, Politics, and Everyday Life:
In this comprehensive book, Natalie Aviles takes us deep inside the National Cancer Institute, tracing how a federal agency has orchestrated the evolving mission to treat a much-feared disease over seven decades. Sure to become a classic in the study of government-sponsored science, An Ungovernable Foe tells the surprising story of how scientific innovation as well as failure emerge from the inner workings of the federal bureaucratic machine.

Nicole C. Nelson, coeditor of Social Studies of Science and author of Model Behavior: Animal Experiments, Complexity, and the Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders:
An Ungovernable Foe is essential reading for scholars studying translational research and public-private partnerships. Aviles makes a compelling case that we should not be too quick to label these organizational forms as neoliberal or to dismiss government scientists as unimaginative. Through her meticulous study of the National Cancer Institute, she shows that federal agencies are an underappreciated site of both scientific and bureaucratic innovation.

Andrew J. Perrin, SNF-Agora Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University:
The U.S. government's long-term investment in cancer research and treatment has had profound effects on cancer, but also on the relationships among health, science, industry, and democracy. Spanning an extraordinary seventy-year period, An Ungovernable Foe traces the ways the National Cancer Institute's dual missions, scientific developments, and organizational imperatives have shaped both politics and health. If you want to understand the ways science and democracy shape one another, you can't afford to miss this book.