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Since its publication in 1991, Robert Walker's book has become the standard student text on AIDS - for courses dealing with both social issues and natural disasters or epidemics. This completely revised second edition is updated through the Spring of 1994 and includes data released at that time. With a broad-based introduction, utilising a wide-range of sources in a unified and manageable way, Walker uses the virus itself, its characteristics, and our perception of it, as the foundation for his analysis. The character of the epidemic is seen as a function of the virus, thus his examination integrates politics, economics, avoidance issues, and scientific research with the biology of HIV.The topics include discussions of linguistic usages and metaphors applied to AIDS and their consequent policy significance; the impact of the epidemic on those professional groups engaged in researching cures and treatments; a historical-epidemiological comparison of the bubonic plague and the AIDS epidemic; the policy implications deriving from the nature of HIV itself; behaviour impact on individuals seeking to avoid AIDS; avoidance strategy and risk assessment; economic and political impacts; and a conjectural view of the future through the prism of the current epidemic.