
Madness is something that frightens & fascinates us all It is a word with which we are universally familiar & a condition that haunts the human imagination Through the centuries in poetry & in prose in drama & in the visual arts its depredations are on display for all to see A whole industry has grown up devoted to its management & suppression Madness profoundly disturbs our common sense assumptions; threatens the social order both symbolically & practically; creates almost unbearable disruptions in the texture of daily living; & turns our experience & our expectations upside down Lunacy insanity psychosis mental illness
- whatever term we prefer its referents are disturbances of reason the passions & human action that frighten create chaos & yet sometimes amuse; that mark a gulf between the common sense reality most of us embrace & the discordant version some humans appear to experience Social responses to madness our interpretations of what madness is & our notions of what is to be done about it have varied remarkably over the centuries In this Very Short Introduction Andrew Scull provides a provocative & entertaining examination of the social cultural medical & artistic responses to mental disturbance across more than two millennia concluding with some observations on the contemporary accounts of mental illness ABOUT THE SERIES The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas & enthusiasm to make interesting & challenging topics highly readable