Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States

by James W. Trent

Book Overview

Pity, disgust, fear, cure, and prevention--all are words that Americans have used to make sense of what today we call intellectual disability. Inventing the Feeble Mind explores the history of this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520203577
• ISBN13: 9780520203570
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Perseus - Ucal Pod
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

COMPREHENSIVE, EXCELLENT HISTORY

James Trent has written an excellent comprehensive history of mental retardation in the U.S. Readers will also find pertinent photographs, and a full bibiography. This volume is a resource for students, human-services professionals, and historians. I highly recommend it.

It's superb!

I have been teaching classes on the history of residential facilities in America for several years. This book brings a new light to me, and to all of us who work for people with disabilities.

Should be required reading for everyone in the field.

After working in this field for ten years, I finally found something that gives me a history of what has happened to those that came before me and I am making it required reading for my staff.

This was the best book on this topic I ever read.

I spent a good deal of time in libraries looking for information that was ALL CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK. Trent does an amazing job of piecing together a social/medical history of mental retardation. No medical book, no first person type accounts, no histories of institutionalization touched this book. This book draws from all the different disciplines to present a complete picture (as good history books do). It is highly readable and engaging. It's academic and rigorous yet entertaining. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.