PublishedNorton, July 2018 |
ISBN9780393609646 |
FormatHardcover, 320 pages |
Dimensions24.1cm × 16.3cm × 3cm |
In 1930s and 1940s Vienna, child psychiatrist Hans Asperger sought to define autism as a diagnostic category, treating those children he deemed capable of participating fully in society. Depicted as compassionate and devoted, Asperger was in fact deeply influenced by Nazi psychiatry. Although he offered care to children he deemed promising, he prescribed harsh institutionalisation and even transfer to one of the Reich's killing centres, for children with greater disabilities.
With sensitivity and passion, Edith Sheffer reveals the heart-breaking voices and experiences of many of these children, whilst illuminating a Nazi regime obsessed with sorting the population into categories, cataloguing people by race, heredity, politics, religion, sexuality, criminality and biological defects-labels that became the basis of either rehabilitation or persecution and extermination.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
In 1930s and 1940s Vienna, child psychiatrist Hans Asperger sought to define autism as a diagnostic category, treating those children he deemed capable of participating fully in society. He was depicted as compassionate and devoted. However, he was in fact deeply influenced by Nazi ideology, and for children with greater disabilities he prescribed harsh institutionalisation, and in some cases transfer to the Reich’s killing centres. Edith Sheffer, in this book, recounts the heartbreaking experiences of these children, and illuminates the Nazi regime’s obsession with cataloguing people by race, politics, religion, sexuality, criminality and biological defects – all labels that became the basis of either rehabilitation or persecution or extermination. It’s meticulously documented, and absolutely chilling in its detail. It reveals the consequences of the most extreme abuses of clinical power and authority. It will move you to rethink how societies assess, label, and treat those with disabilities.
