The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry

“A monumental achievement” ( New York Times ) and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of the American health care system.

Considered the definitive history of the American health care system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine examines how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. How did the financially insecure medical profession of the nineteenth century become a prosperous one in the twentieth? Why was national health insurance blocked? And why are corporate institutions taking over our medical system today? Beginning in 1760 and coming up to the present day, renowned sociologist Paul Starr traces the decline of professional sovereignty in medicine, the political struggles over health care, and the rise of a corporate system.

Updated with a new preface and an epilogue analyzing developments since the early 1980s, The Social Transformation of American Medicine is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of our fraught health care system.