For someone who is not associated with this world this seems like a very good introduction to this world, the author obviously has some biases but is relatively open about them which for an introduction is crucial. Recommended for people who want an overview of the history of modern psychiatry!

When you actually enjoy a book you have to read for your thesis :D

This book was a fascinating timeline of psychiatry, all the way through asylums in the 18th century until the advent of psychopharmacotherapy from the 50s-now. Edward Shorter is a fantastic writer and one can really sense his passion for mental illness by the way he tells a story. I really enjoy non-fiction books that are so well-written they flow and read as easily as a fictional story. Shorter is one of those types of writers. This was especially helpful for me, because this is a book I needed to read and take notes on. I think the fact I read this book in a week is testament to how well-written and readable it is. I learned a lot of new words while reading this book! Having a psychology degree means I knew quite a bit of the background/topics discussed in this book, but I still found myself gasping at a lot of what was written in this book, particularly the statistics of the 17- and 1800s. I also noted down quite a few early books Shorter referenced that are written from the perspectives of people with mental illness and those in early asylums, which I am looking forward to reading. This book certainly added a lot more than a substantial reference point in my thesis!

I don't agree with the core argument presented by this book, or with the lack of space given to the voices of those treated by psychiatry, but there's no denying it's incredibly well-written, covering a lot of ground in a very accessible way for an academic text.

I'm having trouble recalling what I thought about this book before I read the last chapter as it sent me into an amnesia-inducing rage. I'll write what I thought of the last chapter first to hopefully get it out of my system.
It is absolutely astounding how someone can be so lacking is self-awareness. To spend nearly 300 pages writing about the harms of disregarding the reality of mental illnesses (as those in the deinstitutionalization/anti-psychiatry movement often did) and then spend the last 40 or so pages disregarding new diagnoses?? It's absolutely absurd. How can he not see that he's doing exactly what he so often spoke out against? To say that psychiatrists invented PTSD, personality disorders, and ADHD by pathologizing behaviour simply to retain a place in the market place is absolutely insulting. Not that there isn't anything to be said about over-pathologizing, because there certainly is. But the implication that PTSD/personality disorder/ADHD symptoms are not disordered? Simply wrong. He literally makes nearly the exact same argument that the anti-psychiatry thinkers made, arguments that he supposedly greatly disproved of. Similarly, his bizarre hatred for Prozac and other recent drug discoveries makes no sense. Again, there is something to be criticized in how heavily they are marketed and perhaps over-utilized (though I think the criticism lies more in the disastrous state of our society that makes people turn to drugs rather than use of the drugs themselves or people somehow not "needing" them, because they certainly do). However, he writes about the EXACT same narrative occurring in the 1950s with chlorpromazine and tricyclics (the narrative being drug companies pushing them) with no judgment; in fact, he supports this as they further biological psychiatry. It just makes no sense how he criticizes these new drugs and new diagnoses when he seems to be supportive of those exact same things, but only 40 or so years earlier.
Overall, I found his tone and bias throughout the book quite distasteful. Not because I disagreed with him necessarily - certainly psychoanalysis and the antipsychiatry movements had very negative impacts. He was just so unbearably self-righteous and judgmental to the point of absurdity. I don't believe that history books need to be completely dry and unbiased, but his downright mockery of certain figures and ideas was crass.
All that said, there is a lot of valuable information in the book and it's generally a good overview of the history of psychiatry. His frequent lack of compassion towards mentally ill people, even going as far as disregarding highly unethical experiments (that included sexual assault, which he conveniently left out) in the name of medical advancement, was distasteful. And just on an organizational note, it wasn't entirely chronological, occasionally going over the same area of time a few times, which made it feel repetitive at times. But I did come away with some useful knowledge. I just wish Shorter recognized how childish his bias was coming across in writing (or perhaps he did and didn't care? either way, not my cup of tea) and when he was being hypocritical. I simply cannot understand how he suddenly changed his view in the last chapter of the book and said, actually, no, expanding upon the science of psychiatry both in how we treat mental illness and how we diagnose it is bad and we should remain in the 1970s, I guess? It's beyond confusing and makes me think that he a very specific idea of what mental illness Should Be. And that's just not for me.