"An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the
barbarities of class...readers are gifted that most precious of
things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the
world."
—Naomi Klein,
New York Times bestselling author of This
Changes Everything and The
Shock Doctrine
From preeminent
LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes
a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues
of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society.
Having spent a
ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and
criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper
truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities
in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses
spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social
structures than they are on biology alone.
Told through the
heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating
the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings
the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays
bare its inner workings. In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson’s
Caste and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, The Viral
Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing
the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.
