The World Bank and HIV/AIDS seeks to confront the central contention of the World Bank in its work on HIV/AIDS, namely that the Bank and actors working within the global response to HIV/AIDS can achieve liberal outcomes by neo-liberal means. However, at times, this focus is lost because Harman gets absorbed in explaining the Bank's agenda and does not prosecute her argument in full.

Harman's book is situated between two growing bodies of work, the literature on the African state and neo-liberalism on the one hand, and analyses of global health governance on the other. It is also connected to the heated policy debate on the governance of financing for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. The significance of the volume is twofold. First, Harman provides a detailed and strong analysis of the most relevant domestic health and political institutions – including a consideration of civil society in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – and shows how they relate to the World Bank and its Multi-Country AIDS Programme (MAP). Second, she provides an original analysis of two practices of the World Bank's MAP, its focus on multi-sectorality and the role it gives to civil society organisations (CSOs). However, these two achievements press the reader, as does the structure of the book, to question just how significant the Bank's pursuit of liberal outcomes through neo-liberal means at every level of governance actually is. The argumentation Harman puts forward to answer this question is somewhat disappointing, because it lacks sufficient empirical material on the detailed mechanics of how the Bank extends its governance reform agenda, especially from CSOs to the personal level.

However, the book is nonetheless significant for our understanding of the relationship between domestic health and political institutions. Harman builds her case studies on the basis of numerous semi-structured interviews, structured questionnaires and participant observation. The scope of research in each of the countries, as well as in the United States and Switzerland, allows for a remarkable picture of the practices of the MAP. Relevant institutions indigenous to each country studied, and their relationship with those established by the World Bank as a pre-condition of MAP funding, are explained. These institutions include National AIDS Councils (NACs), District AIDS councils (DACs), and the Regional Facilitating Agents (RFAs). Harman then sets out how these institutional contexts relate to the Bank's main focus on multi-sectorality.

The greatest strength of the book lies in the way it shows the connection between the personal aspects of HIV/AIDS and the complex and perplexing role of CSOs. While Harman does not make as strong a case as she might regarding the significance of the Bank's pursuit of liberal outcomes through neo-liberal means, the analysis of how the Bank's multi-sectoral interventions shape the connection between individuals and CSOs, and so change social relations, is timely. This book has significance for the fields both of African Studies and of global health governance.