The Book Prize Index

Polio: An American Story

David Oshinsky

All who lived in the early 1950s remember the fear of polio and the elation felt when a successful vaccine was found. Now David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond.Here is a remarkable portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on our national obsessions and fears. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. Indeed, the competition was marked by a deep-seated ill will among the researchers that remained with them until their deaths.

HistoryAmerican History · medium confidenceAmerican History81 signalsLlm Classifier: American History -> American HistoryGoogle Books: Health & Fitness -> Medicine & Public HealthKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryRegional & Local History

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in HistoryMajor2006WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • America40%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    The polio panic of the early 1950s is used to reveal America’s national obsessions and fears, while the race for a cure is portrayed as a suspenseful rivalry centered on Salk and Sabin.

    Model confidence 42%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    55 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 46%.