This landmark book is a comprehensive, vividly presented and deeply scientifically based history of the relationship between humanity and cancer, against which personal stories of the war with the “king of all diseases” unfold. Taking the reader through changing ideas about this disease in different eras, methods of treatment, milestones in understanding its mechanisms and conflicts of interest around it, the author reveals the reasons for the limited victories over it and outlines realistic contours of coexistence with it in the future. The eternal dreams of a magic pill for cancer are opposed on the pages of the book by an enemy so insidious because in its biological perfection it too closely resembles distorted reflections of ourselves.