Amazingly written and very informative! This book was easy to understand and heartbreaking at the same time. Highly recommend this one and can’t wait to get a physical copy for myself

A truly fantastic work by vital thinkers and activists. A great companion read to their podcast, Death Panel.

I got a copy of this book the day it was going to be archived on NetGalley. I had wanted to read it for a long time, but it isn't exactly cheap and easy to get for a little Colombian surplus (do you see what I did there?) so I was extremely happy when I found it on NG.

This book makes me feel validated. I know I'm not alone, but most times it's hard to see it that way. The research work was outstanding, and it has many important historic facts that we have to keep in mind to understand what is happening right now, as nothing has barely changed. The Pharmacology chapter was very insightful (and terrifying). I would've liked to read more about other parts of the world, such as the African continent, but I definitely learned more about capitalism and imperialism has damaged places like Latin America, Palestine, and India. Overall a great read, I highly recommend it to everyone, especially to those who are or have been surplus.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars.

This book is probably the most needed text of 2022/2023. As we learn more about disability, chronic illness, neurodiversity, and more, and how they interact with work and other forms of capitalism and consumption, the world becomes increasingly complex. Adler-Bolton and Vierkant deliver the authoritative guide to what this landscape looks like and how we can (try) to navigate it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

Personally, I enjoyed this overview of various health systems and how they can and cannot work without our current (American) structures. However, this book is very academic and requires a good working knowledge of political theory and how that is applied in policy. It is succinct and to the point--making it an excellent resource for activists, theorists, and academics--but its threshold of foreknowledge keep it from being what I would classify as "pop politics" and widely accessible to the general public. A great read if you're interested in this topic, but not for light readers.

health and communism are two of my favourite things to talk about so big thanks to @versobooks for this advance copy!! out october 18th which is coming up!

i'l caveat my review by saying if this had covered everything i wanted it to the book would have been so long i wouldn't have read it - for 200 odd pages this book did a really really good job outlining the ways capitalism shapes not only our healthcare systems but also the way we understand health and illness to begin with. rather than looking just at disability as a space where capitalism prevents care, the book examines the many ways "surplus populations" are constructed and then reinforced within healthcare which, as a starting point, allows for a much bigger discussion that still builds on all the good work already done to promote a social model of disability. the book also does a good job getting into the tangles of different thinking on it's subject through the past century and provides a historical example of a model for a healthcare/mental healthcare intervention based on communist principles. while this isn't a solution to every issue the book outlines (nor is it presented as such!) i did think this made the book stand out from similar work in that it offered some very specific building blocks for a way forward. the book also gives a good overview of the radical potential of both the act up movement in the aids epidemic and the anti-psychiatry movement (both topics i'm really interested in in general) and showing the ways each fell short of a totally new vision for healthcare. because this builds on so much theory the vocabulary can be a little on the academic/inaccessible side - idk if i would recommend this to someone totally new to either leftist thinking or the history of the 1960s-90s but for those who are interested in those topics i think this could offer you something new!

Health Communism is a fascinating book that analyzes how health and capital influence each other. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in a leftist views on healthcare. I would also recommend taking this book slow for anyone newer to the subject matter.
Thank you to Netgalley and Verso Books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.