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

ndrewfan's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

kaseyco's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

Content Warnings

drndkrs's review against another edition

4.5

medium-paced

sabmccracken's review

4.5

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Such a heart wrenching read, but so good. The story is written so well

emilyguenther's review

5.0

challenging emotional informative sad fast-paced

booktothepointe's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense

Antonia Hylton has compiled the history of Crownsville Hospital in a chronological easy to understand narrative that lends dignity to the people denied humanity for so long. She outlines how this hospital and others like it were used as basically detention centers for people of color the government didn’t want to acknowledge or deal with for decades. Also, she goes into the asylum to prison pipeline that was created as asylums were being phased out and the residents had no where else to go, they became unhoused, then eventually ended up incarcerated as they had no access to necessary health services. I appreciate the care with which she has searched for first hand accounts and primary sources of the patients as well as the humanity she returns to the patients who were stripped of it as they crossed the property line into Crownsville. The direct connection between racism and the treatment of patients is laid bare through the decades of operation and at every step of integration and development while the hospital was open. Highly recommend this difficult read — as important as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Content Warnings