Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
92% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity Paperback – August 23, 2016
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Purchase options and add-ons
“Beautifully told, humanizing, important.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Breathtaking.”—The Boston Globe
“Epic and often shocking.”—Chicago Tribune
WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NONFICTION AND THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD
What is autism? A lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more—and the future of our society depends on our understanding it. Wired reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years. Going back to the earliest days of autism research, Silberman offers a gripping narrative of Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, the research pioneers who defined the scope of autism in profoundly different ways; he then goes on to explore the game-changing concept of neurodiversity. NeuroTribes considers the idea that neurological differences such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD are not errors of nature or products of the toxic modern world, but the result of natural variations in the human genome. This groundbreaking bookwill reshape our understanding of the history, meaning, function, and implications of neurodiversity in our world.
- Reading age10 - 17 years
- Print length560 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.92 x 1.43 x 8.98 inches
- PublisherAvery
- Publication dateAugust 23, 2016
- ISBN-100399185615
- ISBN-13978-0399185618
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Sincerely, Your Autistic Child: What People on the Autism Spectrum Wish Their Parents Knew About Growing Up, Acceptance, and IdentityAutistic Women and Nonbinary NetworkPaperback
“Our therapeutic goal must be to teach the person how to bear their difficulties. Not to eliminate them for him, but to train the person to cope with special challenges with special strategies; to make the person aware not that they are ill, but that they are responsible for their lives.”Highlighted by 392 Kindle readers
Kanner named their condition autism—from the Greek word for self, autos—because they seemed happiest in isolation.Highlighted by 388 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Ambitious, meticulous and largehearted history...NeuroTribes is beautifully told, humanizing, important."
—The New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Silberman has surely written the definitive book about [autism’s] past."
–The Economist
“A comprehensive history of the science and culture surrounding autism studies…an essential resource.” –Nature magazine
“NeuroTribes is a sweeping and penetrating history, presented with a rare sympathy and sensitivity. It is fascinating reading; it will change how you think of autism, and it belongs, alongside the works of Temple Grandin and Clara Claiborne Park, on the bookshelf of anyone interested in autism and the workings of the human brain.”
--From the foreword by Oliver Sacks, author of An Anthropologist On Mars and Awakenings
“Breathtaking… as emotionally resonant as any [book] this year." –The Boston Globe
“A lively, readable book… To read NeuroTribes is to realize how much autistic people have enriched the scope of human knowledge and diversity, and how impoverished the world would be without them.” –The San Francisco Chronicle
“It is a beautifully written and thoughtfully crafted book, a historical tour of autism, richly populated with fascinating and engaging characters, and a rallying call to respect difference.” – Science magazine
“Epic and often shocking…Everyone with an interest in the history of science and medicine — how it has failed us, surprised us and benefited us — should read this book.” –Chicago Tribune
“The best book you can read to understand autism" –Gizmodo
“Required reading for every parent, teacher, therapist, and person who wants to know more about autism” –Parents.com
"This is perhaps the most significant history of the discovery, changing conception and public reaction to autism we will see in a generation." –TASH.org
“A well-researched, readable report on the treatment of autism that explores its history and proposes significant changes for its future…In the foreword, Oliver Sacks writes that this 'sweeping and penetrating history…is fascinating reading' that 'will change how you think of autism.' No argument with that assessment." –Kirkus Reviews
“The monks who inscribed beautiful manuscripts during the Middle Ages, Cavendish an 18th century scientist who explained electricity, and many of the geeks in Silicon Valley are all on the autism spectrum. Silberman reviews the history of autism treatments from horrible blaming of parents to the modern positive neurodiversity movement. Essential reading for anyone interested in psychology.”
--Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and The Autistic Brain
“NeuroTribes is remarkable. Silberman has done something unique: he’s taken the dense and detailed history of autism and turned the story into a genuine page-turner. The book is sure to stir considerable discussion.”
--John Elder Robison, Neurodiversity Scholar in Residence at The College of William & Mary and author of Look Me in the Eye
“This gripping and heroic tale is a brilliant addition to the history of autism.”
--Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at University College London
“In this genuine page-turner, Steve Silberman reveals the untold history of autism: from persecution to parent-blaming, from Rain Man to vaccines, of doctors for whom professional ego trumped compassion, to forgotten heroes like Hans Asperger, unfairly tainted by Nazi links. It ends on an optimistic note, with ‘autistics’ reclaiming the narrative and defining autism in their terms — more difference than disability and an essential part of the human condition. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in autism or Asperger’s, or simply a fascination with what makes us tick.”
--Benison O’Reilly, co-author of The Australian Autism Handbook
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Leo’s father, Craig, produces science videos for KQED, a public TV station in San Francisco. Shannon Rosa is a blogger, editor, and software consultant. Each morning, they take turns helping their son get ready for school. The first thing that Leo does each day is read a list of icons taped to his door, which Shannon made for him by downloading and laminating clip art from the Internet. This list—his “visual schedule”—is written in a pictorial language that is easier for his mind to absorb than words. An image of a boy putting on his shoes prompts Leo to get dressed, followed by the likeness of a toothbrush, and then an icon of a boy making his bed.
Leo’s visual schedule parses the sprawling unpredictability of an eleven- year-old’s life into a series of discrete and manageable events. This helps him regulate his anxiety, which is a challenge for people on the spectrum at every age.
In a cluttered room down the hall, Leo’s sisters are also getting ready for the day. Zelly (short for Gisela, the name of Craig’s aunt) already has the poised, self-possessed air of the thoughtful young woman she’s becoming at thirteen. In a family of brazen eccentrics, she’s taken on the job of being the “normal” one. India, who is five years younger, exudes her own potent brand of charisma, but it’s more antic and subversive, with mischief and drama perpetually brewing in her bright green eyes behind thick glasses. While Zelly is generally reserved, India will walk right up to a stranger in a restaurant and say, “My, what a pretty dress you have!” She instinctively knows how to make herself the center of attention and work a crowd.
While eating breakfast with his sisters in the kitchen, Leo suddenly jumps down from his chair as an alarming expression—between terror and exhilaration—takes possession of his face. He bolts for the door but his father doesn’t flinch; instead, Craig calls after him in his softest voice, “Where ya goin’, buddy?”
Leo immediately sits down again and resumes eating as if nothing had happened. His first spoonful of yogurt this morning contains a crushed tablet of Risperdal, an atypical antipsychotic developed for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults. His parents don’t like the idea of giving him this powerful drug, but for now, it seems to be helping him get a handle on his most distressing behavior, which is teasing and bullying India. Leo has never quite forgiven her for being an unexpected intrusion into a world that he was just getting used to himself. One of the downsides of the drug is that it amplifies Leo’s already considerable appetite. His uncanny ability to snatch food from distant plates has earned him a family nickname: the Cobra. When Shannon brings bowls of oatmeal to the table, India quietly slides hers out of Cobra range and mutters under her breath, “This is mine.”
Suddenly Leo jumps up from the table again and says to his father, “Green straw?” It is not yet time for his first green straw of the day, but he will get one before the school bus pulls into the driveway—one of tens of thousands of wide, bright green Starbucks straws that Leo has used over the years for the purpose of stimming (self-stimulation), one of the things that autistic people do to regulate their anxiety. They also clearly enjoy it. When nonautistic people do it, it’s called fidgeting and it’s rarely considered pathological.
A red straw from Burger King can occasionally fit the bill, or a blue one from Peet’s. Clear straws from Costco just don’t cut it. But a green straw from Starbucks is Leo’s Platonic stim. If Shannon allowed him to do so, he would take a green straw to bed with him, or even better, a pair—one between his lips and the other in his toes. He would stim in the bath, on the toilet, and jumping on the trampoline.
Leo’s fascination with straws is a wonder to behold. First, he tears the coveted object free of its paper wrapper; then he wets his lips and starts nibbling along its length, palpating the stiff plastic to pliability; finally, he masticates it to a supple L-shaped curve. All the while, he’s twiddling the far end in his fingers, making it dance with a finesse that would be considered virtuosic if he was performing sleight-of-hand tricks. Watching Leo’s Ritual of Straws is like seeing one of W. C. Fields’s vaudeville routines with a hat and cane run at hyperspeed.
A few years ago, Shannon pulled the family minivan up to the entrance of Zelly’s summer camp, when Leo, with his usual exquisite timing, made it known that he had to pee. There were no bathrooms in the vicinity, so Shannon escorted her son behind a convenient bush and urged him to do his business as India and her pal Katie pretended not to watch. She assured the girls that peeing on school grounds was tolerated under certain circumstances, and even kind of cool. “Sometimes, when you’re a boy, it’s great,” she said. “You can pee in bushes all over the world!”
“And sometimes, when you’re a girl, you have a brother with autism,” India shot back. “And then your whole world changes.”
Product details
- Publisher : Avery; Reprint edition (August 23, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 560 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0399185615
- ISBN-13 : 978-0399185618
- Reading age : 10 - 17 years
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.92 x 1.43 x 8.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Steve Silberman is an American writer based in San Francisco, California. Silberman is best known as a writer for Wired magazine, where he has been an editor and contributor for 14 years. In 2010, Silberman was awarded the AAAS "Kavli Science Journalism Award for Magazine Writing." His featured article "The Placebo Problem" discussed the impact of placebos on the pharmaceutical industry.
Silberman's 2015 book about autism and neurodiversity was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize. Silberman's Wired article "The Geek Syndrome", which focused on autism in Silicon Valley, has been referenced by many sources and has been described as a culturally significant article for the autism community. Silberman's Twitter account made Time magazine's list of the best Twitter feeds for the year 2011.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Even though it is reasonably impossible to do so with any level of appropriateness to the depth of his accomplishment in the writing of this book, I must thank Steve Silberman for this highly compassionate and comprehensive account of the history of what in many ways could be said to be my own 'race'; a race even more invisible than Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, since my race is not divided by any simplistic or obvious trait.
In a world preoccupied with surfaces and mirrors, the race of people I belong to must be known only in compassion, by way of un-intrusive study, reflection and observation; indeed, we can only be known by the very qualities which we ourselves possess; to a degree scarcely known by the violence of various idealisms, divisive thinking and ever-quickening societal change.
It is a history that is PROFOUNDLY moving in the way that a thing can only be once it is known that it exists at all, as if for the first time. It is as if centuries of human progress and profound insight has been revealed before me, by my own extended hands, and by my own extended consciousness, across time and space. Indeed, it is so moving because it is as if Silberman was allowing me to understand that I was Dirac and Cavendish reincarnated, having never heard of either before, and in his words and descriptions discovering a long lost family to which I belong; never having belonged before...
Indeed, I also cried because it is astounding to hear stories of compassion and understanding extended to and revealed by my long-lost tribe members in the patient understandings of their teachers, doctors and parents; none of which I have experienced myself, since my family are entirely unaware of their own inherited Autism (and thus their lack of understanding both for themselves or me). I brought these facts up to them, only to have it largely denied.
One particular scene described in the book about the caring of a family to show their child an advance preview of the experience of visiting the dentist will remain permanently etched in my mind, such is the gulf between the experience of compassion and caring described in this book and between this scene and my own personal experience.
Throughout the book, the sheer beauty of what it is like to experience life in the ways I do is expressed in a way that validates the lives of all inward-focused people everywhere. Some, like Henry Cavendish, lived lives in profoundly positive circumstances (being wealthy and having a father who appropriately focused the mind of his son, to the lasting benefit of all), such that in Cavendish, one can see an example of what I think nearly all the Asperger's (this is certainly true of myself) tribe would (and do) strive for, given the chance. I am shocked to learn about examples of my fellow brothers-in-mind, and feel as though the hidden and mysterious history of the modern world has been shown to me in a map of my own heart, written in the hands of Steve Silberman, a proxy for my long-dead brethren, and for myself.
The service provided by such a history will ever be with me, now. I would hope that anyone with autism would read this deeply wonderful book, and I would hope anyone who is taking an idealistic stance against autism or regards people with autistic in such a violent way would read this book and know that you have to spend time getting to know us. We know you better than you can imagine, and we experience things more deeply than you can know.
Nature abhors a vacuum, it is said, and by removing ourselves into quiet, consistent lives, we are able to reveal larger truths about the nature of the world around us. This is both a history of the traits of people doing this, and I believe could be an insight and a history into how truth itself is revealed to human beings in general.
Silberman’s book is rich in both human and scientific detail and shines in three aspects. Firstly, he meticulously traces the history of autism and the lives of the neurologists, psychologists and doctors who chased its elusive identity. He focuses especially on two psychologists, Leo Kanner in the United States and Hans Asperger in Nazi-controlled Vienna who identified the syndrome and pioneered its study through observations on hundreds of cases. Asperger was the first one to identify a variety of signs and symptoms that contribute to what we now call autism spectrum disorder, and his studies were expansive and nuanced. Silberman’s account of both the foibles and the triumphs of these two individuals is fascinating: while Kanner’s fault was in assigning the blame for autism to parents (he coined the phrase "refrigerator mother") and focusing on children, Asperger identified mostly high-functioning autistic savants in his publications for a chilling reason – so that the lower functioning cases could avoid the ghastly fate met by victims of the Nazis’ euthanasia program which aimed at eliminating “mentally feeble” individuals. Both Kenner and Asperger meant well, and in Asperger’s case his withholding of the identities of autistic people literally meant the difference between life and death.
And yet as Silberman so adeptly demonstrates, this was one of those cases where the intentions of humane and well-meaning researchers actually caused harm to public perceptions of the syndrome. Kanner and Asperger’s story is an instructive lesson in both the vagaries of scientific discovery and human nature and the sometimes unfortunate intersection of science with politics. The selective reporting of high-functioning patients in case of Asperger and children in case of Kanner led to a massive underreporting of autistic cases and the creation of a guilt complex among parents. It also led to a delay in the recognition of autism as a spectrum of disorders (Autism Spectrum Disorders) rather than a narrowly defined condition. It wasn't until 1981 that English researcher Lorna Wing finally publicized Asperger's wide ranging observations; and it wasn't until 1991 before German researcher Uta Frith finally translated his work.
Encouraged by Wing's work, when the diagnostic manual DSM-III-R finally classified autism as a widespread and bonafide syndrome with a textured and wide-ranging spread of symptoms and issues, Kanner and Asperger’s inadvertent underreporting of cases led everyone to believe that there was a sudden ‘epidemic’ of autism, a belief that triggered even more soul-searching and the assignment of cause and effect to all kinds of environmental variables including vaccines. Much of the media with its emphasis on sensationalism and simplistic explanations at the expense of subtlety and complexity did not help matters, although ironically as Silberman tells us, it was a movie - "Rainman" - that brought a lot of public attention to autism. It is in the second half of the book that Silberman sternly clamps down on fraudulent claims of connections between autism and vaccination, including the retracted work published by Andrew Wakefield.
Finally, Silberman’s detailed account draws up wonderful and sometimes very moving portraits of families and individuals affected by autism. Also included are capsule portraits of famous people with autism and Asperger's syndrome like Nikola Tesla and Temple Grandin. Silberman makes it clear that such people defy easy classification, and we do them and ourselves a disservice when we stereotype and bin them into discrete categories. He interviews hundreds of people who are stricken by the syndrome and tells us the stories of both adults and children who first struggled to cope with the disease and then found solace in meeting similar people and connecting with support networks. He also profiles families from a remarkably wide cross-section of society – from people living below the poverty line to wealthy California families - who are convinced by unverified connections between the environment and autism. Silberman does not agree with them, but he empathizes with their concerns and tries to understand them. Fortunately the stigma associated with autism spectrum disorders is gradually giving way to a more subtle understanding, but as Silberman indicates there is still a long way to go. As the title puts it, his plea is for a world that appreciates neurodiversity; the fact that even people regarded as psychologically different can have very important and valuable perspectives to offer.
If I had some minor gripes with the book, they were with the sometimes long-winded digressions on the lives of autism researchers and patients and the relative lack of discussion of cutting-edge biomedical and neurological research on the topic, including work from genomics and drug discovery. But these are minor gripes. Silberman has painted a rich, empathetic portrait of a devastating, baffling but ultimately comprehensible disorder and its history which we all owe ourselves to appreciate. Because ultimately, as the central message of this book reveals, the cure for autism is in understanding and empathy. The cure lies in human nature itself.
Top reviews from other countries
Tellingly, Silberman’s first chapter describes an 18th century English scientist named Henry Cavendish as a way of refuting the notion that Autism is a wholly new phenomenon. The appearance that Autism is new and growing at epidemic proportions has facilitated some spurious thinking, most famously the idea that childhood vaccinations cause of autism. [To be fair, it’s easy to see why parents would want to find a simple, single-point cause, given that one of the previous hypothesized causes (which turned out to be also wrong) was that autism was caused by cold and detached parenting.] However, decades of intense investigation without a consensus conclusion suggests that a simple, straightforward cause-effect dynamic is unlikely and that more complexity is involved.
But the controversy doesn’t stop there. As within the deaf community, an argument has been on the rise that autism shouldn’t be treated as a disability to be cured but rather a difference that can be managed and which offers strengths that can be leaned into. And one of the most intriguing aspects of Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are the mental strengths that can accompany the condition. Anyone who’s seen “Rain Man” (a chapter is devoted to it) will be aware of how savant-like mental capabilities can accompany the immense social difficulties displayed by people on the Autism Spectrum. Silberman takes on all of this and more as he presents a history of Autism.
The book is arranged into twelve chapters. As mentioned, the first chapter proposes that autism is nothing new and can be seen if one looks closely into select biographies, such as that of Henry Cavendish. While appearances in the historical record may be rare, the fact that some autistics have great mental capacities has resulted in instances in which they produced results so impressive that they remain noteworthy across the ages, despite the fact that such people were often socially isolated. The book next looks at modern-day examples of autistics who are changing the world. After that, having hooked the reader, Silberman proceeds chronologically through the advancements in understanding of autism -- giving extensive attention to the work of Hans Asperger, Leo Kanner, and Bernard Rimland -- but also addressing others such as Oliver Sachs and Bruno Bettelheim. In addition to discussing the research (which presents many of its own controversies,) Silberman shows how societal views of autism have changed from being considered either a form of retardation or of psychosis to being seen as a difference in abilities that should be respected.
Along the way, one learns a bit about the history of eugenics, and not just among the Nazis. (Hans Asperger’s reputation was sullied by the widespread belief that he’d worked with the Nazis.) Silberman explores the Second International Eugenics Congress that was hosted by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. We also learn about the movie “Rain Man” and how Dustin Hoffman prepared for the role, and how the movie became a game-changer for the autistic community.
The final chapter shifts gears from what has been happening with autism to how to move forward. It presents the idea of neurodiversity, and considers how it can be accommodated. There is a brief epilogue that revolves around the son of Bernard Rimland. Rimland, while already a psychologist, shifted into the study of autism because he had an autistic child of his own.
I found this book quite intriguing. It is a fascinating exploration of the spectrum of states that we think of as autism. If you have any interest in the mind and neurological conditions, you’ll likely find it an educational read.
Well written, keeps me wanting to read for hours.









