'A remarkable journalistic achievement.' Time Out 'Powerful . Indispensable.' Observer 'Superb.' London Review of Books Winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize How does a country deal with a virus that is slowly killing numbers of its people? How does a country contain an epidemic spread by sex, drug use and blood products? And how does a population react when told that everyone is at risk from infection? By 1986, when the British Government woke up to the problem of AIDS, it estimated that 30,000 people had already been infected with HIV. Why did it act so late? Would the situation have been different if most of those affected had not been gay men? Award-winning journalist Simon Garfield drew on a vast amount of startling and confidential material to write a wide-ranging history of the epidemic and its consequences, first published in 1994. It is a story of political intrigue, of panic and hysteria, of wasted opportunities and financial mismanagement, and of a medical and scientific battle conducted against seemingly impossible odds. Beginning with the first baffling case in Manchester in 1959 and ending with the public commemoration of over 10,000 AIDS cases in 1994, the story moves from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street, from the homes of pop and film stars to the many lives of those facing personal devastation and prejudice.

The End of Innocence is an important and salutary tale, compellingly told.