Reviews of The Occupation of Iraq

"Studying both the history and business of allergies, Mitman . . . traces hay fever from its first (erroneous) identification as an ailment of the wealthy in the 19th century up to the modern, booming antihistamine market. . . . As Mitman demonstrates, Americans seeking relief have changed where they live, what they build their homes with, what they buy, what activities they participate in and even the chemistry of their own bodies—but still all you hear every spring is sneezes. In clear and detailed prose, Mitman offers a wide-ranging history of this ongoing struggle that's as much about 20th century American consumerism as it is about allergies."
--Publishers Weekly

"Magisterial. . . . Pure gold. . . . Will certainly become the benchmark work against which all later books will have to be measured. It is authoritative, incisive, dispassionate, devastating in its important judgments, and wholly original. Allawi is one of a handful of men who can tell the whole story of policy, government and administration from the basis of close, personal experience."
--Roger Owen, Harvard University

"This is a pioneering text."
--Robert Fisher, University of Connecticut

"Mitman has a knack for identifying subjects that link the cultural and scientific. He presents asthma as a kind of indicator or sampling device for ideas about nature and society. Intriguing."
--Charles E. Rosenberg, Harvard University

"This nuanced exploration of allergy and asthma elegantly combines environmental history, history of science, and history of medicine. Mitman charts important new territory."
--John Harley Warner, Yale University School of Medicine

"This book makes a strikingly original contribution to social, environmental, and medical history. Mitman challenges Americans to rethink environmental, medical, and public health policies."
--Gerald Markowitz, CUNY

"Gregg Mitman’s Breathing Space offers a critically important analysis of the emergence of allergies as strikingly common and increasingly serious health maladies. But it does much more: by systematically linking environmental and medical history, Mitman offers a powerful argument against biomedical reductionism. In this pathbreaking book, he vividly shows how our bodies, our environment, and our health are indivisible."
--Allan M. Brandt, Kass Professor of the History of Medicine, Harvard University