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Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection, by John Green, 2025

I first heard about this book before it was finished, because I follow dress historian Nicole Rudolph on YouTube, and Nicole did a react video to a video by John Green about consumption (tuberculosis) fashion in the 1800s. And John Green watched Nicole (and Abby Cox’s) videos about this, and talked to them, and even visited Nicole, and edited this section of his book, and mentioned both of them in his book. I think because it was a late edit, this section of the book is actually the least well written. But it’s a short section, I strongly suspect that it is more accurate due to the edit, and it’s not terribly written: just not as sparkling and coherent as the rest of the book.

Which is, to be clear, overall very sparkling and coherent. It’s also quite short, and easy to read. Reading it now, in March of 2025, after the Trump administration has cut (without input from the Congress, which designated money for it, and has the constitutional authority over the budget) a lot of foreign aid, including a lot of foreign aid to fight tuberculosis (and AIDs), is fairly difficult. But, of course, the Trump administration makes everything difficult, so that’s not really about this book. As I was reading it the first time, I was hoping that this short, clear, sensible book could be a good way to convince the convincible Trump voters. But, as I started reading it for a second time, I noticed that the very first page mentions, as a casual aside, climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. To me, John Green feels like a centrist, because he is a Christian (and I know leftist Christians exist, but I don’t know many of them), but, upon further reflection, this is a book for liberals and leftists, not a book to convince the right wing. The right wing Christians who are, for example, dismissing empathy as evil or immoral, will not be convinced by this book, which is all about empathy.

It’s also a book written by a person who was originally a fiction author, and it does embrace a kind of suspense, which surprised me somewhat. In Chapter 1 (which is the second chapter, because the book starts with an introduction), Greene mentions Henry, a tuberculosis patient John met in Sierra Leone. John includes a picture of Henry, talks quite a lot about him, and does not disclose his prognosis. It’s a choice I don’t know if I agree with: for example, I don’t feel it’s ethical to tell people to watch the documentary The Aplinist without telling people that the main character, Marc-André Leclerc, dies. But, with Everything is Tuberculosis, if you’d like to know the fate of Henry, you can simply flip to the end of the book and find out. Since this is non-fiction, many people do die of tuberculosis in this narrative, including Eleanor Roosevelt, the assassins of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, John Green’s own great uncle, and two of James Watt’s children, among many others. Because, as the subtitle says, tuberculosis is the infection that has probably killed more humans than any other disease, over the course of deep human history.

Unlike the movie The Aplinist, I want to share this book with as many people as possible. I don’t think I really know anyone far enough right to dismiss a book that mentions climate change on the first page, just because of political reasons, and I really do think that this book can (help to) change the world. This book aims to convince people that we really can make the world a better place. Green talks about vicious cycles, which definitely occur in the progression of active tuberculosis. But Green also talks about virtuous cycles, which do occur in the successful treatment of TB; people get stronger, and get their appetite back, which means they can get even stronger, which helps their body fight TB. Green argues that we must be optimistic enough to reach for the virtuous cycles in society. Right now, of course, is a very dark moment for virtuous cycles in worldwide health. But the future can be different than the present, and the cruel and essentially inefficient, insufficient Trump administration’s policies could lead to a broad backlash that makes the whole world better for a long time. This isn’t, of course, inevitable; this really could be the beginning of much increased worldwide suffering and death.

Green’s book provides optimism and a path forward, though. So while it’s hard to read in this dark time, it’s also very hopeful to read. And, unlike Princen’s The Logic of Sufficiency, it’s an easy read that just about anyone can easily finish. Which is why I’m so widely recommending it.

I realized while reading this that it is in one my favorite genres: non-fiction with footnotes. Of course, I do enjoy other genres, and I personally prefer books with both asides in footnotes and sources in foot or end notes to books, like this one, with just asides in footnotes, and no page by page reference or sources resource. Green does mention many of his sources, in the “Further Reading” chapter at the end of the book. And I accept that Green is probably making the correct choice to make this book more readable by not having any non-readable sections, like dense lists of sources.

Another surprise of this book is that it has quite a bit of disability activism in it. It is written by a privileged author whose mental health diagnoses are well controlled by drugs, but he has clearly read, and taken on board, a lot of disability activism by TB survivors.

So, yes, I think you, yes you, should read this book. And if you live in Chicago, I’m happy to lend you my copy!