Tuberculosis has been with humanity for thousands of years. Once romanticized as a poet’s disease, today it is the world’s deadliest infection, killing 1.25 million people annually despite being curable since the 1950s.
In his new book, “Everything Is Tuberculosis,” John Green traces the history of the disease, its persistence and the inequities that allow it to thrive.
Green, the New York Times bestselling author of “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Anthropocene Reviewed,” weaves together global health research, social history and personal encounters with patients like Henry Reider, whom he met in Sierra Leone in 2019. The book is also the first release from Crash Course Books, an imprint devoted to nonfiction for students and lifelong learners.
In this conversation, Green reflects on the human choices that have enabled tuberculosis to remain a crisis and why he believes humanity also holds the power to end it.
