Colonial Madness
Psychiatry in French North Africa
Keller, Richard C.
Paperback
$25.00 + $1.99 USPS S/H
We're sorry, but we do not currently have this book in stock.
BOOK SUMMARY
Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagined Muslim colonies in North Africa to be realms of savage violence, lurid sexuality, and primitive madness. Colonial Madness traces the genealogy and development of this idea from the beginnings of col
BOOK SYNOPSIS
Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagined Muslim colonies in North Africa to be realms of savage violence, lurid sexuality, and primitive madness. Colonial Madness traces the genealogy and development of this idea from the beginnings of colonial expansion to the present, revealing the ways in which psychiatry has been at once a weapon in the arsenal of colonial racism, an innovative branch of medical science, and a mechanism for negotiating the meaning of difference for republican citizenship.
Drawing from extensive archival research and fieldwork in France and North Africa, Richard Keller offers much more than a history of colonial psychology. Colonial Madness explores the notion of what French thinkers saw as an inherent mental, intellectual, and behavioral rift marked by the Mediterranean, as well as the idea of the colonies as an experimental space freed from the limitations of metropolitan society and reason. These ideas have modern relevance, Keller argues, reflected in French thought about race and debates over immigration and Frances postcolonial legacy.
AUTHOR BIO
Richard C. Keller is assistant professor of medical history and the history of science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
BOOK REVIEWS
"A fascinating look at the intentions and realities of the so-called civilizing mission. Richard Keller's book is a rich and complex history of the way psychiatrists understood their patients, both European and North African, in the shifting sands of the colonial relationship."-Tanya Luhrmann, University of Chicago
FOR RELATED BOOKS
History Books :: Africa Books :: North Books
Psychology Books :: History Books
MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 0226429733
ISBN(13-digit): 9780226429731
Dewey Decimal: 616.89/00961
Library of Congress: 2006026923
Book Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 294
