A fascinating monograph exploring how serious illnesses, especially tuberculosis and cancer, have been viewed in the West throughout history to the present day and what these illnesses have meant for writers. Sontag also looks at how illness, from plague to cancer, have been used as metaphors in society and politics. Written in 1978, it predated AIDS which she tackled in her essay AIDS and its Metaphors in 1989 - before she was herself killed by cancer.