Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory

by Ian Hacking

Book Overview

Twenty-five years ago one could list by name the tiny number of multiple personalities recorded in the history of Western medicine, but today hundreds of people receive treatment for dissociative disorders in every sizable town in North America. Clinicians, backed by a grassroots movement of patients and therapists, find child sexual abuse to be the primary cause of the illness, while critics accuse the "MPD" community of fostering false memories...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 069105908X
• ISBN13: 9780691059082
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Very Smart *and* Very Readable

Ian Hacking is a brilliant thinker and an elegant writer. I read this book after one of my husband's friends suggested it. He said it was the best book he can ever remember reading (like me, he prefers to read good nonfiction). After reading the book (during which I couldn't help marking particularly good passages because I knew I'd want to reread them), I have found myself refering to this book frequently in my own writing (I'm an academic) and conversation with my students. I must agree with my husband's friend: this is certainly one of the best books I've read. If you enjoy smart analysis of contemporary culture and the frailties of sciences claiming to map the human mind, you will really enjoy this book. If you are a deep believer in the pure and virtuous authority of psychology, you will feel disturbed.