Madness in Civilization

A Cultural History of Insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine

£16.99
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‘A brilliant cultural history … Scull’s book fills a gap in the literature and deserves to be widely read … outstanding’ The Times

This ambitious volume, worldwide in scope and ranging from antiquity to the present, examines the human encounter with Unreason in all its manifestations, the challenges it poses to society and our responses to it. In twelve chapters organized chronologically from the Bible to Freud, from exorcism to mesmerism, from Bedlam to Victorian asylums, from the theory of humours to modern pharmacology, Andrew Scull writes compellingly about madness, its meanings, its consequences and our attempts to understand and treat it.

Extent: 448 pp
Format: Paperback
Illustrations: 128
Publication date: 2020-01-30
Size: 19.8 x 12.9 cm
ISBN: 9780500295632
Endorsements • 1. Confronting Madness • 2. Madness in the Ancient World • 3. The Darkness and the Dawn • 4. Melancholie and Madnesse • 5. Madhouses and MadDoctors • 6. Nerves and Nervousness • 7. The Great Confinement • 8. Degeneration and Despair • 9. The Demi-Fous • 10. Desperate Remedies • 11. A Meaningful Interlude • 12. A Psychiatric Revolution?

Press Reviews

Perhaps the most comprehensive account of the history of psychiatry that has yet appeared in a single volume
The Times Literary Supplement

A milestone text … No other monograph has accomplished such scope, perception and balance in covering madness’s haunting, shifting presence in civilization’s psyche
BBC History Magazine

Powerful and disturbing … a panoramic survey
The Sunday Times

Learned, liberally humanitarian and wryly witty
The Spectator

About the Author

Andrew Scull is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies, University of California, San Diego. He is the author of many books, including Masters of Bedlam; Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine; and Madness: A Very Short Introduction.

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