Anthropologist Emily Martin has become one of America's most admired cultural critics, known for her creative, interdisciplinary work on the social context of science. Her award-winning book The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction revolutionized our thinking about women's reproductive lives, and her research on gender stereotypes that shape medical language has been widely influential. In Flexible Bodies, Martin turns to the human immune system, tracing the notion of immunity in a wide range of contexts from World War II to the present day. Most of us take for granted the idea of strong and flexible immune systems, but Martin shows that American's ideas about health and immunity have changed dramatically since the 1940s. These changes have profound implications for the ways we work and interact, for how we are valued in society and by our employers, and for the distribution and rationing of health care. Martin personally explores the notion of "flexibility" in a dazzling variety of contexts, from medical labs to magazine covers, TV commercials, | Flexible Bodies by Emily Martin, Paperback | Indigo Chapters