Madness: A Brief History

Madness: A Brief History

by RoyPorter (Author)

Synopsis

This story of madness reveals the radically different perceptions of madness and approaches to its treatment, from antiquity to the beginning of the 21st century. Roy Porter explores what we really mean by madness , covering an enormous range of topics from witches to creative geniuses, electric shock therapy to sexual deviancy, and psychoanalysis to Prozac. The origins of debates about how we define and deal with insanity are examined through eyewitness accounts of those treating patients, writers, artists, and the mad themselves.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 253
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 01 Mar 2002

ISBN 10: 0192802666
ISBN 13: 9780192802668

Media Reviews
Roy Porter's untimely death deprived us of one of the outstanding scholars of his generation. This short book on how mental illness has been defined and treated through the ages is brilliantly done. It's concise but not reductive; readable but not dumbed down. Porter wears his vast interdisciplinary learning lightly, and has the knack of combining elegantly clear summary with vivid and intriguing detail - from witchcraft to Freud; from Bedlam to psychopharmacology and beyond. And Porter is also highly informative whilst whetting the reader's appetite for more. In this way the book functions as an ideal (and handsomely produced) introduction to its subject; and as a compelling gateway onto its author's more than 80 other books.
Author Bio

Roy Porter is Professor of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London. He is the author of over 80 books, including Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World and A Social History of Madness.