---
product_id: 33828929
title: "Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine"
brand: "andrew scull"
price: "€ 34.15"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.ie/products/33828929-madness-in-civilization-a-cultural-history-of-insanity-from-bible
store_origin: IE
region: Ireland
---

# Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine

**Brand:** andrew scull
**Price:** € 34.15
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine by andrew scull
- **How much does it cost?** € 34.15 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    It's civilization that's crazy
  

*by S***N on Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2019*

This is a masterpiece of scholarly synthesis, a tour through Western (mainly) civilization seen through its treatments of madness. Reading it makes one depressed, as the victimization of disordered minds and their owners has been the one consistent thread through religious, folk, mesmerist, clinical, psychoanalytical and other trends in treatment. The vanity of the bourgeois professions, Flaubert might say. It struck me throughout that those who pretend to guide civilization ought to look at their own pathological behaviors, especially when treating those who are suffering at their hands. One enhancement to the book that's probably a bridge too far: more treatment of rustic or village societies who are less encumbered by highly institutionalized arrangements such as psychiatry and global religions. Very hard to include, I understand, but therein may lie some insights.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Civilization is a key part of what this book is about
  

*by M***D on Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018*

It feels hypocritical to say this because I plan on using parts of this when I teach Hamlet next year; but I was disappointed in this book. It is certainly not BAD. I think the issue is that it’s been sitting on my shelf for so long, and I had such high expectations for it. Schull spends a lot of time talking here about the ways the mad we’re treated, depicted, housed, and defined. And those are all very interesting perspectives. The two things that keep this from being great, to my mind, are the superficiality of its analyses when it comes to the aforementioned perspectives, and a dearth of talk about actual psychology. The latter may be an unfair critique as the subtitle of this book is “a cultural history of insanity.” Nonetheless, I felt a bit shortchanged with regard to what psychology has meant and means when it talks about insanity. The few chapters at the end of the book DO talk about the problems with DSM ideology and classification; this was not enough for me however.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Madness In Civilization, a good read.
  

*by F***. on Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2015*

Andrew Scull on the second page of the first chapter of his book, serving as an introduction I imagine, dismisses the premise of Thomas Szasz that "mental illness" is a myth, therefore, the words madness and "mental illness" are used almost interchangeably throughout this volume. Elsewhere he is neither so severe nor so judgmental towards dissident "mental health" professionals. Mention is made of French academic Michel Foucault on three occasions, and each mention is mockingly sarcastic. At one point, in criticizing Foucault, where he disputes Foucault's claim to a "great confinement" during the 16th century, I think this criticism stems from a misreading of Foucault. Yes, there was an asylum building boom in the nineteenth century and, yes, this asylum building increased the population of 'lunatics', and one would be very correct in calling it a 'great confinement', however certain events had to lead up to that 'great confinement', and one of them was the, in general, 'great confinement' of indigents and lumpen elements that preceded it, and allowed for the more concentrated confinement of 'lunatics' in the first place. Foucault's position changed somewhat over the years, and if a person does get a hold of the unabridged later edition of his thesis, it helps to follow up any such reading with a reading of Psychiatric Power, among his lecture series, for his revised view some 10 years later. Having been greatly influenced by both Szasz and Foucault I cannot in my right mind give Madness in Civilization 5 stars, but I will cede it 4. It was a better book, after the intro, than I thought it would be.After taking on Szasz and Foucault, in a history no less, I had thought maybe Scull was going to give vast praise to biological psychiatry and see some kind of pharmaceutical revolution as responsible for deinstitutionalization. This was not to be the case, and that's why I am able to give his book the 4 stars that I did. It would, after all, have not been entirely logical for Scull, as a sociology professor, to have done so. Also, I don't think he could have done so without lying a great deal more than anybody should. He deals with mad-doctoring before it became a medical specialty, and he deals with the psychiatric profession afterwards.  He goes from Henry Cotton's seeing infection as the source of 'madness', to various forms of "shock" treatment, to Walter Freeman's icepick lobotomies when it comes to harmful practices. (It would be wrong, however, to pretend that all forms of shock treatment and surgical brain mutilation are no longer current.) He also goes into the current relationship of psychiatry (and madness) to the pharmaceutical industry, and the questions about efficacy and ethics that it raises. It may not convince anybody to change their views on the subject, all the same, it might be able to enhance their knowledge and enlighten them a little about the history of the our views towards the mad. All in all, I would call his book a good and worthwhile read.

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*Store origin: IE*
*Last updated: 2026-02-24*