Alternating chapters from Unity Dow (a Kenyan judge) and Max Essex (an AIDS researcher) on the AIDS epidemic in Botswana. I found Dow's chapters far more useful and interesting than Essex's--he seems to just restate Dow's points in more stilted, academic language. This book would be particularly useful if you know a bit about AIDS but not everything. ( )

Dow provides the anecdotes, which Essex then unpacks and explains. This is a great way to hang a lot of (sometimes repetitive) facts about HIV on vivid, personal stories. A nice model for teaching. ( )

This is a book about Botswana, AIDS, and how far this small African country has come since it started it's fight against the horrors of that deadly virus. I thought the book was informative and not nearly as depressing or sad as one would expect.

Its two authors tell different parts of the story. Unity Dow, a Judge in Botswana's legal system, gives us the case stories of its some of its citizens (whom she personally knew) and how they've responded to the virus in all its complexity. Max Essex is a doctor who gives the reader the medical background (and sometimes the political or economic issues) for the case stories. It is apparent that Botswana is, indeed, the country that "got it right" with regard to AIDS, but still has battles it must wage to win the war.

I appreciated the unusual way this book was structured. However, there were frequent repetitions in the medical information which, in such a short book, I felt were unnecessary. Also, although Mr. Essex writes well enough, his delivery was dry (even allowing for the fact that he was giving us medical/scientific material).

All in all, this was an interesting update on the fight against AIDS in Botswana. ( )