1. Introduction; 2. Madness, Gods, and Demons; 3. The Rationality of Madness; 4. Fools and Folly; 5. Locking up the Mad; 6. The Rise of Psychiatry; 7. The Mad; 8. The Century of Psychoanalysis; 9. Conclusion: Modern Times, Ancient Problems?
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.
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.
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