Blood

Bestselling author Lawrence Hill reflects on the substance that runs through all of us - blood - in a provocative, and sometimes shocking, personal, scientific and social history.

Blood pulses through religion, literature, and the visual arts. Every time it pools or spills, we learn a little more about what brings human beings together and what pulls us apart. For centuries, perceptions of difference in our blood have separated people on the basis of gender, race, class, and nation. Ideas about blood purity have spawned rules about who gets to belong to a family or cultural group, who enjoys the rights of citizenship and nationality, and whether you inherit poverty or the right to rule over the masses. Blood: The Stuff of Life is a bold meditation on blood as an historical and contemporary marker of identity, belonging, gender, race, class, citizenship and nationhood.