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

894 reviews for:

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to try for a Master’s degree & also whether it would be in Sociology or Social Work…and this book has definitely given me the push I needed.

It’s so well written with so much information I most likely would’ve never discovered on my own. This one will definitely stick with me.

aroseevans's review

5.0

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

guypaul's review

5.0

Fast-paced and engrossing chronicle of the history of Crownsville, a segregated hospital for (and built by) blacks in Maryland with a forward-thinking focus on solutions. This is much more than a documentation of the racist horrors inflicted on blacks in the United States. There is information we can use here to improve healthcare for everyone. Highly recommended for social workers, people working with indigent populations, and political leaders.

readerjim's review

4.0

Wow. Stories like this continue to amaze me, and they are part of the fabric of our American life. Crownsville, built by Black men, became a state sanctioned asylum for Black men and women. During it's heydey, when thousands of people called its walls home, it was criminally understaffed and the patients underserved. Antonia Hylton does an admirable job with spotty records, and interviews with former staff that make the place come alive. The most compelling part was her tracing of the growth of mental health supports in our country and the lack of them for the African-American community, as well as the impacts of that on her own family. Personal, historical, painful. What a read.

tbkennedy's review

3.0

A well-researched account of one more of America’s shameful history regarding people of color, this time concerning mental health. But this book wasn’t as compelling a read as say We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle or The Nickelboys by Colin Whitehead.

Audiobook.