In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green weaves a tapestry of historical insight, personal narrative, and medical exploration that transforms our understanding of what many consider a disease of the past. As someone who admits he “simply could not shut up about the disease,” Green has channeled his characteristic obsessiveness into a work that is both deeply informative and profoundly moving.
Green, best known for young adult novels like The Fault in Our Stars and essays in The Anthropocene Reviewed, proves himself equally adept at medical history. This pivot might surprise some readers, but his trademark ability to find meaning in seemingly small connections serves him well in tracking a disease that has killed approximately one in seven humans who’ve ever lived.
The Story at the Heart
The narrative centers on Henry Reider, a young man Green meets at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. Initially mistaking the teenage Henry for a nine-year-old child due to his TB-ravaged body, Green forms a connection that draws him into the world of modern tuberculosis treatment. Henry’s story—along with that of his devoted mother Isatu—provides the emotional anchor for Green’s broader exploration.
What emerges is a tale not just of bacterial infection but of systemic injustice. As Green puts it, “Tuberculosis has come to be seen as a disease of poverty, an illness that walks the trails of injustice and inequity that we blazed for it.”
Historical Threads Masterfully Woven
Green excels when tracking TB through history, revealing connections both shocking and fascinating:
- How TB helped give us the cowboy hat (through hat-maker John B. Stetson’s journey west to treat his consumption)
- The disease’s role in New Mexico achieving statehood (as white TB patients flocked there for treatment)
- How TB-infected teenage assassins played a part in triggering World War I
- The evolution of TB from “consumption”—a romanticized, supposedly hereditary affliction of artistic geniuses—to “tuberculosis,” a stigmatized bacterial infection of the poor
These historical vignettes showcase Green’s talent for finding narrative connections across time and culture. His exploration of how TB was romanticized in the 19th century is particularly strong, examining how a disease that “wealth never warded off” became intertwined with beauty standards that persist today.
Medical Science Explained with Clarity
Green demonstrates remarkable skill in making complex medical concepts accessible. His explanation of how tuberculosis bacteria function—with their unusually slow growth rate and thick cell walls—illuminates why the disease behaves so differently from other infections.
The book traces the medical understanding of TB from ancient times through Robert Koch’s groundbreaking identification of the causative bacterium, to the development of antibiotics in the mid-20th century. Green brings these scientific developments to life through stories of the personalities involved, including Koch’s rivalry with Louis Pasteur and Arthur Conan Doyle’s role in debunking Koch’s failed “cure.”
The Modern Crisis Unveiled
Where the book truly shines is in exposing the current state of global TB care. Despite being curable since the 1950s, tuberculosis remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease because:
- Effective testing remains inaccessible in many regions
- Treatment regimens are lengthy and difficult to complete
- Drug-resistant strains emerge when treatment is interrupted
- Pharmaceutical companies maintain high prices on newer medications
- Global health funding prioritizes other diseases
Green effectively argues that TB persists not because we lack medical solutions, but because we lack the political will to implement them. As one doctor tells him, if everyone had access to good healthcare, the number of people who would die from TB would be “None. Zero. Zero people should die of TB.”
Strengths and Limitations
Green’s storytelling is at its most powerful when focused on individuals. Henry’s journey becomes emblematic of how TB disproportionately affects the marginalized, while Dr. Girum Tefera’s tireless efforts to save his patient exemplify the dedication of healthcare workers fighting against systemic barriers.
The author’s personal investment shines through, particularly in the postscript where he discusses his own advocacy work. This connection gives the book an urgency that purely academic treatments of the subject might lack.
If the book has a weakness, it’s that the breadth of historical material occasionally overshadows the contemporary crisis. Some readers might want more focus on current global health policy and less on 19th-century fashion trends influenced by consumption. Additionally, while Green acknowledges his outsider perspective, the book might have benefited from incorporating more voices of TB survivors from various contexts.
Prose that Bridges Science and Soul
Green’s writing style remains accessible even when tackling complex medical concepts. His ability to shift between historical anecdote, scientific explanation, and personal reflection keeps the narrative engaging throughout. Consider this passage on the romanticization of TB:
“Who among us would not want to live such a life, and die such a death? How natural! How lovely! And there is something to it—people usually die of tuberculosis slowly, over months or years, as opposed to a terrifying epidemic like cholera or typhoid sweeping through a city. People dying of consumption often, although not always, appear to die peacefully, or at least quietly. But mostly, this was a lie a society told itself to fathom losing so much of itself to one disease.”
This blend of empathy and analysis characterizes the book’s approach, allowing Green to examine tuberculosis as both a biological and social phenomenon.
A Powerful Call to Action
By the book’s conclusion, Green has built a compelling case that TB persists not because it’s unconquerable but because we have chosen not to conquer it. His explanation of the STP (Search, Treat, Prevent) framework provides a concrete vision for how we might end the TB pandemic, while his account of activists like Phumeza Tisile shows how patient advocacy has already driven significant change.
For readers familiar with Green’s other works, the book’s emphasis on interconnection will feel familiar—just as he found the anthropocene everywhere in his previous book, here he finds tuberculosis in cowboy hats, romantic poetry, and colonial railroads. But unlike previous works, Everything Is Tuberculosis carries an urgent call to action. As Green writes, “How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century?”
Comparative Context
While most readers will approach this as “a John Green book about tuberculosis,” it also deserves consideration alongside other works of medical history and global health literature. The book shows influences from seminal works like Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies and Paul Farmer’s writings on structural violence in healthcare.
Readers who appreciated Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map or Thomas Goetz’s The Remedy will find similar narrative approaches here, though Green’s personal connection to his subject gives the book a different emotional register.
Final Assessment
Everything Is Tuberculosis succeeds brilliantly as both a work of medical history and a humanitarian wake-up call. Green has crafted a book that educates, moves, and motivates readers to see tuberculosis not as a disease of the past but as an ongoing crisis demanding our attention.
The book does occasionally meander through its historical material, and some readers might wish for more policy analysis than literary history. But these are minor criticisms of a work that so effectively illuminates how a curable disease continues to claim millions of lives.
For those who know Green from his fiction or YouTube work, this book represents both a departure and a natural evolution of his humanistic worldview. For those approaching him for the first time, it serves as an accessible entry point to understanding one of the world’s most persistent public health crises.
By the final pages, we understand that when Green says “everything is tuberculosis,” he means that this disease reveals the fundamental inequities, historical forces, and human connections that shape our world. And most importantly, he shows us that we have the power to change that world.
Everything Is Tuberculosis isn’t just about a disease—it’s about who we choose to save, who we allow to suffer, and how we might build a more just future. In Green’s words: “We are the cause. We must also be the cure.”
