This comprehensive collection provides a fascinating summary of the debates on the growth of institutional care during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Revising and revisiting Foucault, it looks at the significance of ethnicity, race and gender as well as the impact of political and cultural factors, throughout Britain and in a colonial context. It questions historically what it means to be mad and how, if at all, to care.

The discovery and treatment of insanity remains one of the most debated and discussed issues in social history.

Focusing on the second half of the nineteenth century, The Politics of Madness provides a new perspective on this important topic, based on research drawn from both local and national material. Within a social and cultural history of the English political and class order, it presents a fresh appraisal of the significance of the asylum in the decades following the creation of a national asylum system in 1845.

Arguing that the new asylums provided a meeting place for different social interests and aspirations, the text asserts that this then marked a transition in provincial power relations from the landed interests to the new coalition of professional, commercial and populist groups, which gained control of the public asylums at the end of the period surveyed.

This comprehensive collection provides a fascinating summary of the debates on the growth of institutional care during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Revising and revisiting Foucault, it looks at the significance of ethnicity, race and gender as well as the impact of political and cultural factors, throughout Britain and in a colonial context. It questions historically what it means to be mad and how, if at all, to care.

Related link: The Society for the Social History of Medicine
eBook available with sample pages: 0203025784

The discovery and treatment of insanity remains one of the most debated and discussed issues in social history. Focusing on the second half of the nineteenth century, The Politics of Madness provides a new perspective on this important topic, based on research drawn from both local and national material. Within a social and cultural history of the English political and class order, it presents a fresh appraisal of the significance of the asylum in the decades following the creation of a national asylum system in 1845. Arguing that the new asylums provided a meeting place for different social interests and aspirations, the text asserts that this then marked a transition in provincial power relations from the landed interests to the new coalition of professional, commercial and populist groups, which gained control of the public asylums at the end of the period surveyed.

Bitter-sweet comedy from director Bill Forsyth. Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) is a gawky adolescent living in a small Scottish town. He is the star of the school football team until the arrival of the gorgeous Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), the only female player, who quickly replaces him. Although demoted to goalie, Gregory soon falls head-over-heels in love with Dorothy, and sets about trying to ask her out.

Bitter-sweet comedy from director Bill Forsyth. Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) is a gawky adolescent living in a small Scottish town. He is the star of the school football team until the arrival of the gorgeous Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), the only female player, who quickly replaces him. Although demoted to goalie, Gregory soon falls head-over-heels in love with Dorothy, and sets about trying to ask her out.

Directorial debut of Bill Forsyth following four unemployed Glaswegian teenagers in the 1970s. When Ronnie (Robert Buchanan) discovers that stainless steel sinks are worth a lot of money, he recruits friends Wal (Billy Greenlees), Alec (Allan Love) and Vic (John Hughes) to help him steal 90 of them from a nearby warehouse. The leader of the gang hatches a complex scheme that requires Vic and Wal to dress up as girls and use a sleeping potion, concocted by chemistry expert Bobby (Derek Millar), to borrow a bakery delivery truck for their cunning getaway. With Ronnie at the helm, can the friends pull off the heist and obtain their small fortune?

In a corner of Britain untouched by the swinging spirit of the sixties, an idealistic young probation officer is assigned to a new case. His charge is a youth of cold, dead-eyed indifference, who seems destined for little more than a life of anti-social behaviour or, at worst, one of professional hooliganism. Three decades later, women all over Britain are being slaughtered in their homes by a killer so single-minded, so voraciously brutal, vile and bloodthirsty, that he might have slipped out of an open portal from Hades. Leading the investigation is Commander Alyson Kendal. Her pursuit of the killer takes her and her team from the frantic hub of Scotland Yard to the steaming jungles of Kampuchea, via the arid, sun-baked plains of Uganda, where the killer has served under Pol Pot and Amin, revelling in the terror and cruelty of their respective regimes. Despite mounting evidence and strong leads, the killer remains elusive and the public begins to lose faith in Commander Kendal's abilities. She is no less harsh on herself and knows she must find him, even if it means putting herself in the deadliest danger.