A Social History of Madness: The World Through the Eyes of the Insane - Softcover

Porter, Roy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0525485147 ISBN 13: 9780525485148

Publisher: Plume, 1989

Synopsis

Uses the autobiographical writings of the mentally ill from the past to depict what they felt about their condition, life and times

About this title

From Library Journal:

Porter, a lecturer at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, explores the authenticated thoughts and personal narratives of supposed mad people, chiefly from earlier centuriesnot with the condescension accorded them in earlier times, but with the perspective of a social historian. The "stories" are vivid and show "that the beliefs of mad people make sense when read as part of a dialectic of consciousness between them and their times." They also reveal the difficulty of defining, from one century to the next, what demarcates the mad from the sane. Porter's nonpolemical but measured critical stance and credible reassessments make for enjoyable reading. Includes an extensive evaluative bibliography. William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Many men and women who are labeled mad or schizophrenic reveal startling insight into their own condition while condemning the callousness of a society that shuns them. Here, in relating the stories of some two dozen people who endured severe mental illness, "Porter has produced a disturbing and profound study of the way we treat the mentally ill and how the insane view the 'normal' world," commented PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0525485147
• ISBN 13: 9780525485148
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272