Madhouse

On the outskirts of Havana lies Mazorra, an asylum known to--and at times feared by--ordinary Cubans for over a century. Since its founding in 1857, the island's first psychiatric hospital has been an object of persistent political attention. Drawing on hospital documents and government records, as well as the popular press, photographs, and oral histories, Jennifer L. Lambe charts the connections between the inner workings of this notorious institution and the highest echelons of Cuban politics. Across the sweep of modern Cuban history, she finds, Mazorra has served as both laboratory and microcosm of the Cuban state: the asylum is an icon of its ignominious colonial and neocolonial past and a crucible of its republican and revolutionary futures. From its birth, Cuban psychiatry was politically inflected, drawing partisan contention while sparking debates over race, religion, gender, and sexuality. Psychiatric notions were even invested with revolutionary significance after 1959, as the new government undertook ambitious schemes for social reeducation. But Mazorra was not the exclusive province of government officials and professionalizing psychiatrists. U.S. occupiers, Soviet visitors, and, above all, ordinary Cubans infused the institution, both literal and metaphorical, with their own fears, dreams, and alternative meanings. Together, their voices comprise the madhouse that, as Lambe argues, haunts the revolutionary trajectory of Cuban history.

A shocking story of medical brutality perfomed in the name of psychiatric medicine.

Don't talk to strangers... Faced with his parents' divorce, eleven-year-old Lucas runs away from home in the hope that his family will get back together to find him. While walking through the empty streets, he is picked up by a mysterious woman, who offers to take care of him and provide him with a loving family. The boy then wakes up in shackles, confined to a bed in a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere and will have to face his deepest fears in order to survive in his new home. Join Lucas in a desperate attempt to get back to his family in Madhouse, the first published book from horror-thriller author Miguel Estrada.

The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars. The Madhouse Effect portrays the intellectual pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the clear evidence that human activity has changed Earth's climate. Toles's cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies. Mann's expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific consensus. The synergy of these two climate science crusaders enlivens the gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books—and may even convert die-hard doubters to the side of sound science.

"PLUCKY NELLIE BLY!" “No young writer has ever leaped into such sudden fame in New York as Miss Nellie Bly, who did that lunatic asylum exposure for the New York World. She is a bright, handsome young lady, less than twenty years old, who came to the metropolis from Pittsburg a few months ago, and pluckily undertook to make her living by newspaper work in the great city. She deceived the expert physicians who examined her, and pronouncing her insane they consigned her to one of the insane wards of Blackwell’s Island, where she dwelt among horrors for ten days, noting down in her quick brain all that she saw and heard. The old song says: “Nellie Bly, shuts her eye When she goes to sleep,” but she seems never to have closed a peeper during the whole of that trying ordeal. Her narrative of the horrors of the place—the indifference of doctors, the neglect and cruelty of the nurses and the tortures inflicted upon the unfortunates, is told in a plain, straightforward manner and attests at once to her humanity and truth.” - November, 1887 This volume collects for the first time ever all the reporting surrounding Nellie Bly’s blockbuster undercover story that launched her to fame, including all three versions from her own pen: - Bly's initial account across three articles for the New York World - Bly's bestselling book Ten Days In A Mad-House - Bly's long-form 1889 article Among The Mad for Godey's Lady's Book Also included are over two dozen contemporary articles relating to Bly's madhouse stay, including the attempt by the New York Sun to scoop Bly on her own story! With a foreword by David Blixt, author of What Girls Are Good For: A Novel Of Nellie Bly, The Master Of Verona, and Her Majesty's Will.

2020 Victorian Community History Award Winner Larundel Psychiatric Hospital was ‘the madhouse on the edge of town’ – until the 1990s, a Melbourne cultural icon shrouded in mystery in the outer suburb of Bundoora. What was it really like inside this madhouse? This story takes us into the heart of Larundel through the voices of former inmates and staff, exposing the best and worst aspects of the mental institutions of the times. It shows the shifts in psychiatric treatments, the social forces at play, and changes driving mental health policy. It explores what de-institutionalisation and ‘care in the community’ actually meant for those suffering mental illness, as well as for those treating, and caring for them. What did we lose with Larundel’s closure in 1999 and the move to acute psychiatric wards in general hospitals? The notion of asylum? Is the more recent notion of ‘recovery’ a hopeful signpost towards a brave new world for mental health? The authors are Sandy Jeffs, a former inmate of Larundel, who became an advocate for her ‘mad’ comrades and is now a poet of distinction; and Margaret Leggatt, sociologist, occupational therapist and activist for the friends and families of mentally ill people. ‘A significant and lively contribution to the history of mental health services in Australia, offering vital insights for the progress we must work for.’ – Jack Heath, CEO, SANE Australia

Mississippi is a unique case study as a result of its long-standing defiance of federal civil rights legislation and the fact that nearly half its population was black and relegated to second-class citizenship. According to the vast majority of Mississippi daily press editorials examined between 1948 and 1968, the notion that blacks and whites were equal as races of people was a concept that remained unacceptable and inconceivable. While the daily press certainly did not advocate desegregation, in contrast to what many media critics have reported about the Southern press promoting violence to suppress civil rights activity, Mississippi daily newspapers never encouraged or condoned violence during the time periods under evaluation. Weill places coverage of these important events within a historical context, shedding new light on media opinion in the state most resistant to the precepts of the civil rights movement. This is the first comprehensive examination of civil rights coverage and white supremacist rhetoric in the Mississippi daily press during five key events: the 1948 Dixiecrat protest of the national Democratic platform; the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate public schools in 1954; the court-ordered desegregation of Ole Miss in 1962; Freedom Summer in 1964; and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. From nearly 5,000 issues of Mississippi daily newspapers, more than 1,000 editorials and 7,000 news articles are documented in this volume.