Reviews - Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

882 reviews for:

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

Antonia Hylton

4.35 AVERAGE

bespectacledlibrarian's review

5.0

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5 / 5 — minus .5 just because it felt really disjointed at some points. Despite this - it was still very well written and very well researched. I really like how this book takes on a historical recounting of Crownsville and also serves as a mini memoir about the author’s own familial experiences with mental health.

However, this book is an extremely important read - and is extremely infuriating to hear about how the patients were treated. I don’t know what I expected, but racism was and still is rampant in healthcare and mental health treatment.

I can’t say much more without spoiling it - but I would recommend this book to anybody - especially anybody interested in working in healthcare. It is incredibly important to acknowledge the history of Crownsville , and hopefully we can do better.

The book can be overwhelming at times, but the stories about the staff members who truly tried to change Crownsville for the better and really cared about the patients provided some hope and should be celebrated in the annals of medical history.

magicshoes's review

4.0

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

erin_orr's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

tr4veln0w's review

4.5

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

rosa_lina96's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative sad medium-paced

A nuanced, well-researched look into not only the history of Crownsville, but also how the patterns of racial injustice and systematic racism can even affect the mental health system in America. Drawing on interviews with former employees, patient records (what little remained, anyway) and more, Madness is a book that not only serves as excellent social commentary on how healthcare can possibly hope to break free of racial divides going forward but also humanizes the individuals that are featured throughout the narrative. Very much worth the read.

Content Warnings