Examines a range of current innovative health technologies, exploring how far they change the boundaries between the body, health, technology relationship, and assessing the contribution a critical social science can make towards our understanding of this shift.

Shortlisted for the BSA Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize.

Introduction: Understanding Innovative Health Technologies
The Dynamics of Biomedical Innovation
Corporate Health, Markets and Regulation
Body, Identity and the Meaning of Health
Managing and Governing New Health Technologies
The Contested Sick Role
Conclusion: Novel Technologies, New Social Relations?

ANDREW WEBSTER is Director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit and Head of Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK. He directed the ESRC/MRC Innovative Health Technologies Programme and now is national co-ordinator of the ESRC's Stem Cells initiative. He held an ANU Research Fellowship to Australia in 2006. He is the author of many books and articles. Recent publications include Contested Futures: Mobilising tomorrow's science and technology, Introductory Sociology (Palgrave), Science Technology & Society: New Directions (Palgrave), and New Medical Technologies and Society: Reordering Life.