Jonas Salk: A LIFE

Jonas Salk was born on October 28, 1914, in East Harlem. He was just a child when poliomyelitis and then influenza devastated New York. Spared, he would one day play a major role in the prevention of both. Salk’s work on the influenza vaccine would go largely unrecognized. His polio vaccine, however, would catapult him into a world of celebrity from which he could never extricate himself. When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that his vaccine could prevent poliomyelitis, Jonas Salk became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, he had all the makings of a twentieth-century icon—a white knight in a white coat. Beloved by the public, he was shunned by the scientific community, the one group whose adulation he craved. A brilliant success at age forty, Jonas Salk had half a lifetime to prove himself.

Picture of Henry Kaplan book.

JONAS SALK: A Life was released by Oxford University Press in May of 2015. It will be available through Oxford University Press, Amazon, and general bookstores.

represented by
Mary Evans, Inc.
242 E 5th St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 979-0880
maryevansinc.com
Editor
Tim Bent
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Advance praise for JONAS SALK:

"The story of Jonas Salk is an endlessly fascinating one and in Charlotte Jacobs’s capable hands this will be a winner, an important book."
—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
"What is clear immediately in reading the first few pages of this new work is how fascinating, complex and relevant the life story of Jonas Salk is to our lives today. ... The writing, no surprise, is spirited, informed both by her scientific and medical knowledge and her writer's art.”
—Ehud Havazelet, author of Bearing the Body and winner of the Pushcart Prize and the Whiting Writer’s Award

View Charlotte Jacob's LinkedIn profile Contact