America’s complicated relationship with healthcare explored in new book

The third and final volume of Professor Martin Halliwell’s landmark series on the history of mental health in the United States will be published in November 2024.

Transformed States explores the impact of biotechnology on American medicine from 1990 to 2020. This thirty-year period saw a biotechnological revolution that has transformed modern medicine both in the United States and globally.

The book addresses the politics, ethics, medical applications and cultural representations of this revolutionary period, from the Human Genome Project to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, Transformed States analyses the intersection of science and culture within the United States of America following the Cold War.

Biotechnological advances in medicine have sparked major political and ideological differences within the United States. Areas such as cloning, reproduction, artificial intelligence, longevity, gender affirmation, vaccination and environmental health are some of the most divisive among the American population. In the book, Professor Halliwell how both fears and fantasies about future health and healthcare in the United States have manifested themselves.

Martin Halliwell, Professor of American Thought and Culture in the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester said: “When we think of biotechnology we are usually drawn to concepts of disruption, innovation and novelty linked to the growth of Big Tech in the 2010s. Transformed States takes on these topics, but also explores the high-tech and low-tech implications for mental health and planetary health at a crucial political juncture in U.S. history.”

Professor Gowan Dawson, Dean of Research for the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at the University of Leicester commented: “Martin Halliwell’s Transformed States is itself a transformative book. Exploring the relations of biotechnology with broader questions of health, the book is always lucid and fascinating and has a real ethical imperative underlying its scholarly analysis. Its range of viewpoints facilities a multi-faceted perspective on some of the most pressing concerns in contemporary American politics and culture”.

Transformed States follows on from two earlier books by Professor Halliwell, Therapeutic Revolutions (2013) and Voices of Mental Health (2017). It will be published by Rutgers University Press on Friday, 15 November 2024.