
Adam Barsouk, "Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention" (JHU Press, 2026)
New Books in SociologyShow Notes
Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026) reframes one of the most pressing medical challenges of our time: how to prevent cancer.
In this timely and accessible book, physician and medical researcher Adam Barsouk, MD, presents a sweeping examination of cancer's true origins-biological, environmental, dietary, infectious, industrial, occupational, and behavioral-and makes a compelling case for why cancer prevention must become a central priority in public and personal health.
With personal stories from his clinical practice and the latest research, Dr. Barsouk explains why more people are getting diagnosed with cancer-and at younger ages-than ever before.
This book explores a wide range of overlooked and misunderstood risk factors, as well as how inequities in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention disproportionately impact underserved populations.
Unlike typical cancer books that focus narrowly on diet or organ-specific disease, Outsmarting Cancer takes a comprehensive, systems-level view, urging readers to look beyond the symptoms and target the root causes.
Dr. Barsouk explores the role of genetic predisposition to cancer alongside environmental, lifestyle, and public policy influences that may contribute to developing the disease.
With rigorous scientific insight, he offers real-world, evidence-based strategies to reduce cancer risk in practical, meaningful ways.
Honest, urgent, and empowering, Outsmarting Cancer challenges readers to rethink how we talk about cancer and how we can reduce its burden before it begins. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
More from New Books in Sociology
What happens to foreign aid (and to women’s status) when the global development landscape shifts away from U.S. dominance? In this episode of International Horizons, John Torpey speaks with sociologist Mary-Collier Wilks about her book Reimagining Aid: Foreign Donors, Women’s Health, and New Paths for Development in Cambodia (Stanford UP, 2026). They discuss the contrasting approaches of U.S., Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese donors, the rise of competing regional models of development, and what the changing aid landscape means for gender equality and local actors in Cambodia.
Queer Resistance: Contesting State, Family, and Inequality in Post-Socialist China (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Yuk-Ping Choi examines transformations in intimate lives in post-socialist China through the experiences and resistance of LGBTQ+ people.
Who has the “right” to learn Mandarin Chinese? In Multiracial Mandarin: Asian Americans and Impossible Language (U Minnesota Press, 2026), Dr. David Shuang Song examines how matters of race and privilege shape US Mandarin language education and who has access to it. Through a two-year ethnographic study of two Bay Area high schools where diasporic and heritage speakers learn Mandarin alongside Black and Latinx students, Song advances a sociological and educational–linguistic inquiry into how language interacts with our understanding of identity and equity.
How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.
As overdose deaths continue to mount and debates rage over harm reduction, drug policy, and homelessness, Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival (U California Press, 2026) offers a crucial on-the-ground perspective pointing to a humane future.