The Gravest Show on Earth: America in the Age of AIDS

by Elinor Burkett

A combination social history and an indictment that offers the claim that "AIDS never got to be simply a disease" provides a look at the key players in the AIDS epidemic, such as Kimberly Bergalis, Dr. Robert Gallo, Pedro Zamora, and ACT UP, among others. Reprint.

Genres: Nonfiction

398 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 1995

About the author

Elinor Burkett is an American journalist, author, film producer, and documentary director known for her incisive reporting, scholarly work, and filmmaking. A film she produced, Music by Prudence, won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Burkett earned a doctorate in Latin American History from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. She taught history at Frostburg State University for thirteen years before transitioning to journalism, contributing to The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Harper's Bazaar, and serving as chair of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Department of Journalism. She has held Fulbright professorships in Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe, where she continues to train journalists. Burkett is the author of numerous books, including A Gospel of Shame, The Gravest Show on Earth, and Golda Meir: A Biography. She has also directed documentaries, including Is It True What They Say About Ann. Burkett divides her time between New York and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, pursuing journalism, filmmaking, and writing.

Reviews

[Joelle Lewis]

Brutal. This book was absolutely brutal. I'm reeling so hard I can't even do a proper review.

[Tyler]

A neat exposé of the various misfires in the reaction to the AIDS epidemic. The usual suspects are at work. Advances in the give the urgency a dated feel.