Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic
About this audiobook
A child of immigrants, Abdul El-Sayed grew up feeling a responsibility to help others. He threw himself into the study of medicine and excelled—winning a Rhodes Scholarship, earning two advanced degrees, and landing a tenure-track position at Columbia University. At age thirty, he became the youngest city health official in America, tasked with rebuilding Detroit’s health department after years of austerity policies.
But El-Sayed found himself disillusioned. He could heal the sick—even build healthier and safer communities—but that wouldn’t address the social and economic conditions causing illness in the first place. So he left health for politics, running for governor of Michigan and earning the support of progressive champions like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders.
In Healing Politics, El-Sayed traces the life of a young idealist, weaving together powerful personal stories and fascinating forays into history and science. Marrying his unique perspective with the science of epidemiology, El-Sayed diagnoses an underlying epidemic afflicting our country, an epidemic of insecurity. And to heal the rifts this epidemic has created, he lays out a new direction for the progressive movement. This is a bold, personal, and compellingly original book from a prominent young leader.
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About the author
Abdul El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist, public health expert, and progressive activist. He was appointed health director of Detroit at thirty years old. He is a former professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He holds a doctorate in public health from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and a medical degree from Columbia University.
Ady Barkan was a social justice activist who built three programs at The Center for Popular Democracy: the Be A Hero and Fed Up campaigns and the Local Progress network. He was a law clerk to the Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin in the Southern District of New York and prior to that he was a Liman Fellow with Make the Road New York, where he represented low-wage workers seeking to recover unpaid wages and obtain safe and dignified working conditions. He graduated from Yale Law School and Columbia College, and is the author of Eyes to the Wind: A Memoir of Love and Death, Hope and Resistance. He passed away in 2023 at the age of thirty-nine and is survived by his wife Rachael and their two children.
