"This historical account of the care of insanity outside formal institutions explores key issues relating to the social history of madness from 1750 to the present day. These include women and the social construction of madness, the boarding out of lunatics by poor law authorities, familial care and treatment of the insane and the practice of 'mental healing' by general practitioners. Challenging conventional interpretations of the centrality of psychiatric institutions, the book is an important critical voice in the reappraisal of 'care in the community' and to the historical understanding of the role of medicine in the treatment of mental health problems."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book is a must-read for any specialist in the history of colonial and post-colonial psychiatry, as well as a fantastic case study for those interested in the social history of European colonialism more generally.― Choice Claire Edington's fascinating look at psychiatric care in French colonial Vietnam challenges our notion of the colonial asylum as a closed setting, run by experts with unchallenged authority, from which patients rarely left. She shows instead a society in which Vietnamese communities and families actively participated in psychiatric decision-making in ways that strengthened the power of the colonial state, even as they also forced French experts to engage with local understandings of, and practices around, insanity. Beyond the Asylum reveals how psychiatrists, colonial authorities, and the Vietnamese public debated both what it meant to be abnormal, as well as normal enough to return to social life, throughout the early twentieth century. Straddling the fields of colonial history, Southeast Asian studies and the history of medicine, Beyond the Asylum shifts our perspective from the institution itself to its relationship with the world beyond its walls. This world included not only psychiatrists and their patients, but also prosecutors and parents, neighbors and spirit mediums, as well as the police and local press. How each group interacted with the mentally ill, with each other, and sometimes in opposition to each other, helped decide the fate of those both in and outside the colonial asylum.

Geller and Harris's accompanying history of both societal and psychiatric standards for women reveals that often even the prevailing conventions reinforced the perception that these women were "mad.".

This open access edited collection contributes a new dimension to the study of mental health and psychiatry in the twentieth century. It takes the present literature beyond the ‘asylum and after’ paradigm to explore the multitude of spaces that have been permeated by concerns about mental well-being and illness. The chapters in this volume consciously attempt to break down institutional walls and consider mental health through the lenses of institutions, policy, nomenclature, art, lived experience, and popular culture. The book adopts an international scope covering the historical experiences of Britain, Ireland, and North America. In accordance with this broad approach, contributions to the volume span academic fields such as history, arts, literary studies, sociology, and psychology, mirroring the diversity of the subject matter. This book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

“It has been a while since I have read a book as richly sown with beauty . . . A remarkable work, remarkable for the precision and vitality of its perceptions and for the successful intricacy of its prose.” —James Wood, The New Yorker A visionary novel by "one of the most talented writers of his generation"—The Times Literary Supplement Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Based on real events, The Quickening Maze won over UK critics and readers alike with its rapturous prose and vivid exploration of poetry and madness. Historically accurate yet brilliantly imagined, this is the debut publication of this elegant and riveting novel in the United States. In 1837, after years of struggling with alcoholism and depression, the great nature poet John Clare finds himself in High Beach—a mental institution located in Epping Forest on the outskirts of London. It is not long before another famed writer, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and grows entwined in the catastrophic schemes of the hospital's owner, the peculiar Dr. Matthew Allen, his lonely adolescent daughter, and a coterie of mysterious local characters. With lyrical grace, the cloistered world of High Beach and its residents are brought richly to life in this enchanting book.

From Manhattan and Brooklyn's trendiest neighbourhoods to the far-flung edges of the outer boroughs, Ellis captures the lost and lonely corners of New York. Step inside the New York you never knew, with 200 eerie images of urban decay

Madeleine Roux's New York Times bestselling Asylum is a thrilling and creepy photo-illustrated novel that Publishers Weekly called "a strong YA debut that reveals the enduring impact of buried trauma on a place." For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm. The dorm was formerly a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline's twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on at Brookline . . . secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because Brookline was no ordinary asylum, and there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried. Featuring found photographs from real asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Asylum is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity, perfect for fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Don't miss any of the books in the Asylum series, or Madeleine Roux's shivery fantasy series, House of Furies!