Perilous Medicine

Joanne Liu, former president of Doctors Without Borders:
Providing health care in combat zones often means delivering such care in the face of looting, fires, shelling, bombing, and plague. Rubenstein takes a deep dive in answering why violence against health care seems to be more visible. Perilous Medicine presents a well-documented series of case studies on such tragic attacks. This colossal work demonstrates how hospitals in war zones remain the last patch of humanity in times of utter chaos.

Representative James P. McGovern (D-MA), co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission:
Rubenstein provides a comprehensive account of the drivers of the growing number of attacks on health care during armed conflict. He offers insights and ideas we desperately need to shake off complacency and insist on compliance with the norms and principles of the Geneva Conventions. Governments, including the United States, have the power to protect health care from violence. As leaders and citizens, we have a duty to ensure they do.

Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and author of Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health:
Few people have worked as tirelessly to protect doctors, nurses, and other health workers on the front lines of catastrophes and conflicts as has Leonard Rubenstein, and in this much-needed, eagerly awaited book, he brilliantly details how ruthless leaders, militaries, and terrorists deliberately target hospitals, patients, and their health workers for destruction, kidnapping, and murder. Bravo, Professor Rubenstein, for speaking truth, however inconvenient it may be for world leaders