Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the new War on the Poor (Book)

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About the Book – Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer

Pathologies of Power challenges how we understand human rights by connecting personal stories of suffering to global systems of inequality. In this powerful work, physician-anthropologist Paul Farmer draws on two decades of fieldwork in Haiti, Peru, and Russia to reveal how poverty, racism, and political neglect create the conditions for disease and despair.

Through vivid stories from patients, prisons, and marginalized communities, Farmer reframes health as a human right and exposes how structural violence—the social and economic systems that perpetuate inequality—manifests as illness and premature death. His accounts show that epidemics like HIV and tuberculosis are not only biological phenomena but also reflections of injustice.

Farmer’s message is deeply aligned with the principles of moral leadership and social change: that confronting suffering requires more than charity—it demands solidarity and systemic reform. Despite the harrowing realities he describes, Pathologies of Power carries a hopeful vision: that medicine, technology, and a renewed commitment to social justice can together transform lives and societies.

For changemakers, educators, and activists, this book is both a call to conscience and a guide for connecting personal witness to collective action.

Author information

Paul Farmer was an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was the Kolokotrones University Professor and the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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