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A review by marymagdalena
Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies by Hayley Nolan
1.75
don't get me wrong, the information and analysis of anne boleyn is there and i largely agree with the author, but the manner in which it's presented reads more like a patronizing tumblr post from 2014 than a deserving biography of a largely misunderstood and bastardized figure of history that deserves to be relooked.
there's a dangerous amount of pathologizing and diagnosing figures from the 16th century with 21st century diagnoses. while i'm sure it's safe to say that yeah, anne boleyn during her last week in the tower Did display a number of trauma responses fitting of her situation, i don't think it's responsible to outright say she had PTSD.
the most egregious of this is attempting to diagnose henry VIII with sociopathy and borderline personality disorder. while the author claims to be doing this to attempt to bring a new understanding to how henry VIII worked, it's done nothing but to demonize an already demonized personality disorder. the author only outright names BPD once and proceeds to call the symptoms and signs of henry's (alleged) BPD "sociopathic" numerous times and uses disordered personality as a punchline. this is outright irresponsible. using sociopathy to describe figures from history is something that i think needs to be put on a shelf until people learn that it's not something to just be thrown around willy nilly.
the only textbook case you can reasonably make about henry VIII is that he was a man given absolute power in the 16th century since the age of 17. compare him to any other contemporary ruler and he's just as big a cunt as the rest of them. sure, Could he have had mental illnesses throughout his life? possibly. but that's not for us in the 21st century to definitively say. slapping "scary" diagnoses on him and demonizing them doesn't hurt henry VIII, he's long dead. it does, however, build stigma against people with these personality disorders that the author loves to call sociopathic.
there's a dangerous amount of pathologizing and diagnosing figures from the 16th century with 21st century diagnoses. while i'm sure it's safe to say that yeah, anne boleyn during her last week in the tower Did display a number of trauma responses fitting of her situation, i don't think it's responsible to outright say she had PTSD.
the most egregious of this is attempting to diagnose henry VIII with sociopathy and borderline personality disorder. while the author claims to be doing this to attempt to bring a new understanding to how henry VIII worked, it's done nothing but to demonize an already demonized personality disorder. the author only outright names BPD once and proceeds to call the symptoms and signs of henry's (alleged) BPD "sociopathic" numerous times and uses disordered personality as a punchline. this is outright irresponsible. using sociopathy to describe figures from history is something that i think needs to be put on a shelf until people learn that it's not something to just be thrown around willy nilly.
the only textbook case you can reasonably make about henry VIII is that he was a man given absolute power in the 16th century since the age of 17. compare him to any other contemporary ruler and he's just as big a cunt as the rest of them. sure, Could he have had mental illnesses throughout his life? possibly. but that's not for us in the 21st century to definitively say. slapping "scary" diagnoses on him and demonizing them doesn't hurt henry VIII, he's long dead. it does, however, build stigma against people with these personality disorders that the author loves to call sociopathic.