"We have come to expect that an emergent disease, once the initial hysteria it sparks has died down, will either be eradicated by money and medicine, or it will settle into the prosaic landscape of ordinary maladies with attendant routines, inconveniences, and bureaucratic exasperations. In Africa, AIDS has not followed either pathway. This outstanding collection of essays takes explicit aim at the tensions that this 'non-resolution' has generated in the world region that has felt the greatest impact of the disease: eastern and southern Africa. In these papers, we see vividly how the potential death warrant that AIDS presents to couples, households, children, has institutionalized new forms of social stigma and, at the same time, new levels of collective resilience and courage."