Dominik Mattess stunning new book will remain relevant for those interested in why and how vertical global health interventions often fail (and how they might succeed). This book effectively illustrates how to translate the global to the local and the structural to the personal. Mattes also provides a blueprint for ethnographic research that aims to examine a problem from multiple, often contradictory, angles. Fierce Medicines, Fragile Socialities is a must read for those interested in HIV/AIDS, global health interventions, and ethnographic methods. Medical Anthropology Quarterly
This is an important contribution to existing research on HIV and its treatment in Africa. The book is unique in combining perspectives on providing, and on living, life with HIV treatment. The observations are acute, and the case studies of patients and families are illuminating. Susan Reynolds Whyte, University of Copenhagen
