A small book that raises big questions about the profession of psychiatry and the notion of scientific progress. (28 b&w...
A generously illustrated and pocket-sized distillation of the ways madness has been perceived and treated, from ancient times to the present.
Highly acclaimed medical historian Porter (Social History of Medicine/Univ. College London; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity, 1998, etc.) traces changes in attitude toward madness all the way from prehistoric beliefs in demonic possession to the contention of some modern theorists that mental illness simply does not exist. He demonstrates how beliefs in supernatural causes were challenged by Greek medicine, which developed an explanation based on the four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile), and how that approach was subsequently adopted by Western medicine. With generous use of quotations, he illustrates how in the 17th century new organic theories of insanity linking mind and body began to emerge, leading to the hope that those with mental disorders could be helped through retraining of their minds. Porter examines the drive toward institutionalization, how practical psychiatry developed from the experience of asylum managers, and how disappointment with the results of benign “moral therapy” led to the growing belief that madness was probably hereditary and incurable, which in turn led to compulsory confinement, sedation, and even sterilization. He chronicles the rise and decline of psychoanalysis, both Freudian and non-Freudian, the enormous impact of psychopharmacology, and the proliferation of psychotherapies designed to treat the astonishing number of conditions labeled as mental disorders in the American Psychiatric Association’s current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For those whose appetite will have been whetted by this literate little introduction, Porter appends a well-annotated selection of readings on aspects of his subject just touched on here.
A small book that raises big questions about the profession of psychiatry and the notion of scientific progress. (28 b&w illustrations, many of them etchings and engravings from the 16th to 19th centuries)Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-19-280266-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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