A manageable catastrophe. -- Life expectancy and public opinion -- Structure of this book -- Denial and how it is overcome. -- Private experience and public concern -- Giving meaning to AIDS -- 'Normalizing' AIDS -- Sex and power -- Domesticating AIDS, and its costs -- The media and overcoming denial -- Pavement radio -- AIDS activists : reformers and revolutionaries. -- Confrontation and its limits -- 'Positive positive women' -- AIDS and elections -- Activist networks, local and global -- Transformations in governance -- New solidarities -- How African democracies withstand AIDS. -- The issue of a lifetime -- 'Weber in reverse' -- How do African states 'really' function? -- Democratic demographics -- The economics of democracy -- 'New variant famine' -- The political benefits of AIDS. -- Ugandan myths -- ABC : carefully mixed messages -- 'Fighting' AIDS -- On the difficulties of showing success -- Treatment regimes -- Power, choices and survival. -- Lutaaya, 'alone' -- Democracies can manage AIDS -- Democracies do not prevent HIV.