The last half of the 20th century witnessed explosive growth in science and technology in the developed world, including extraordinary developments in medicine. As medicine's capacity and complexity has grown, so has the popular sense that health care is a right and that the political system should deliver the care. Today, political systems grapple with every imaginable facet of health and health care. Although many of these questions seem economic in nature, they are inescapably political questions regarding the authoritative allocation of resources in response to the contention of values and ideas. This major reference collection shines a bright light on health politics. The editors have organized and introduced some of the best of the canon of health politics literature in four volumes covering political analysis of the emergence and shape of health systems, public perceptions of government's responsibility to assure the delivery of care, health care in a comparative perspective, and the politics of health reform. Volume 1: Defining Health Systems - Path Dependence and Policy Emergence Volume 2: Tensions in Health Policy - Ethics, Interests, and the Public Volume 3: Health Systems in Comparative PerspectiveVolume 4: the Contemporary Politics of Health System Reform