Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement Reprint Edition

by Thomas Szasz (Author)

39 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0815604617

ISBN-10: 0815604610

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In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the Inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show “that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led.”

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Editorial Reviews

Review

The Manufacture of Madness . . . is strictly an 8-to-1 jolt, a blockbuster. This is Szasz at his best: driving relentlessly; writing with consummate artistry and a dazzling, indeed overwhelming, scholarship. . . . It is the most important of Szasz’ work to date, and it is a definitive statement, a classic of its kind, both as the underground history of psychiatry and, no doubt, as prophecy. ― Hospital and Community Psychiatry

Quite possibly [Dr. Szasz] has done more than any other man to alert the American public to the potential of an excessively psychiatrized society. ― Edwin Schurr, The Atlantic

From the Back Cover

In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the Inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show 'that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led.'

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Syracuse University Press; Reprint edition (April 1, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 406 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0815604610
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0815604617
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches

Customer Reviews:
39 ratings

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Thomas Stephen Szasz

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Customer reviews

5 star		69%
4 star		6%
3 star		15%
2 star		2%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Lauren Huff

Raising Questions

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 8, 2021

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Although today's world of mental healthcare is very different than that of the mid 20th century, this book is still applicable today. We put people in categories of "sane" and "insane," much like "good" and "bad." Szasz's book encourages readers to take a second look at this paradigm and see the issue as a more nuanced one. He weaves a great deal of history in his arguments, especially that of the witch crazes of medieval and early modern Europe.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

It outlines the psychiatric scam

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 21, 2016

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The book outlines the scam of Psychiatry. In summary being define a mental illness or state and design a drug to
"solve" it. But the book has the details. Highly recommend..

9 people found this helpful

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Christine Mendenhall

Disgusting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 11, 2021

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The book arrived moldy and stained

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Robi Fallani

I highly recommend the book to psychology students and mental health professionals

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 25, 2015

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Dr.Szasz provides alternative views of mental illness that stimulate curiosity and the desire to look deeper into conventional theories. I highly recommend the book to psychology students and mental health professionals.

4 people found this helpful

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pliny

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 18, 2018

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great writer

3 people found this helpful

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Cedarbeast

Buy Now

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 30, 2015

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Szasz is a genius. "Institutional vs. Contractual" psychiatry.

3 people found this helpful

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La Yhadira

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 20, 2016

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Great book

One person found this helpful

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Sam Dennis

The Cycle of Oppression/Oppressed and Why Not Much can be Done About it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 9, 2013

Humans, according to psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, no longer being cannibalistic tribes, but rather mass technological societies, now mobilize against vulnerable minorities and individuals such as foreign workers, ethnic minorities, nay, they can form groups and protect themselves, but moreover we vilify abandoned children, the poor, the disenfranchised bourgeois, or any wretched group that cannot mobilize against the majority. The lumpenproletariat do not have the powers to withstand the institutional assignment of difference, or being crazy, nor to resist ostracization, incarceration, and the torture that often follows. The mentally ill are Szasz's victims of choice in this book as they are least capable of organizing into protective groups against the inevitable onslaught of moral societies. They can only cling to individual modes of survival, and are easy prey to a moral majority.

Szasz is dubious of the majority gaze on the outlier deviants (people) of society, as such attention generally results in helping (torturing) them, much like the witch hunters of 12th century Europe called burning witches (people) `relaxing' them. Today's societal scapegoats (the wretched, the poor, the mentally ill, the economically and physically ill), are branded and sent into the wilds of the modern social desert; the penitentiary, the streets, or end up the targets of insensible, high-tech bombs.

Szasz's book from 1971 endures today, thriving in our bizarre technological world of government internet spying, and the torture/oppression of people in the Arab/Muslim world. The totalitarian state has now arrived in the 21st century with near total government surveillance and legally approved torture of deviants (people), as government sanctioned enemies (al qaeda, whistleblowers, etc.), are identified and punished, even though these people have similar needs and expectations as the rest of us supposed 'normals.' The Orwellian parallels are too thick and present to overlook here in the smart-phone age. In the totalitarian state of 2013 the oppressors are the same old christian fundamentalists of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible", the Inquisitors of the 12th century Europe, or the stoners of scapegoats in antiquity, always people of self-importance who need other people to debase and label as deviant. The only partial solution, says Szasz, is to be alert where this social impulse is manifest in society. There legislation can possibly restrain the oppressors or succor the victims. The only auspice, Szasz implores, is to try and identify which groups or individuals of today are being scapegoated, those deemed as non-human, the disenfranchised, the poor, the vulnerable (the very young and very old), and those labelled as mentally ill by the authorities, and try and raise awareness of institutional scapegoating; though even that can draw the gaze of the moral masses in ways that can be dangerous, for who wishes to be identified with the non-human, ripe for wholesale repression by the military-industrial core, as in the cases against recent whistleblowers. In reality these scapegoats are as human as you or I, and we should step back and give them the same consideration we do our own selves, lest we fall into the trap that it is actually good to commit certain unnecessary injustices, which occur regularly, and with historical accuracy, among Homo Egoisticus.

This is a grim book, as attested to in the epilogue paraphrasing Kosinski's "The Painted Bird," but is brimming with contrarian truth that challenges and negates the smiling newscasts of propaganda and predatory consumerism of eternal Christmas. While Szasz focuses on his own profession, psychiatry and medicine, his lessons have broad application in many institutional settings: education, the legal system, law enforcement, the corporate world, et al.

11 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

A. C. Phipps

The Fraud that is Psychiatry Exposed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 8, 2013

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This a book that HAS TO BE READ . Szasz presents his case with impeccable precision. The fraud that is modern
psychiatry is totally and utterly exposed. The comparison of the exact mechanism of the inquisition and it's parallel
in institutional psychiatric intervention is illustrated with astonishing accuracy. This book should be made a part of every school curriculum Get it and read it- your future may depend on it!

3 people found this helpful

MR ROB FURSMAN

Must read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 12, 2020

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Must read

M. Amir

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 20, 2014

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A must read for everyone.

2 people found this helpful

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Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement Reprint Edition

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