Buckle up, here comes some rambling...

Ok, first thing's first, I'm autistic. I stim, I flap, I rock, I'm selectively mute, I have a deep loathing of eye contact, I hate change, and the noise my washing machine makes sends me into meltdown. Autistic. So, of course, I have a personal interest in the subject of autism, and ran off to Waterstones to pick this book up the moment this new, proper paperback-sized edition came out, and settled down to read it at my first opportunity. And then it took me over a week to read, a long time for me even for non-fiction.

This book essentially tells the history of the psychiatric, medical, and social understanding of autism, from the initial discoveries of Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner, through refrigerator mothers and vaccine scandals, right up to the present day emergence of self-advocacy. Some readers seem to have been disappointed because they were expecting something else, a flaw in the way it's marketed and blurbed perhaps, but I knew what to expect when I picked it up. It was a little dense at points maybe but it was never boring, I was actually riveted throughout, but I found that I could only read about a chapter a day.

The reason it took so long was that at times it was incredibly difficult and distressing to read, almost every other page there was someone else to add to the list of people I want to go back in time and punch in the face. At one point I had to stop and put the book down for five minutes, mid-sentence, because I was so upset, something I have never done before in my life. Sadly, though not particularly surprisingly, the history of autism is mainly a long list of people wanting to sterilize, institutionalize, "painlessly shorten" the lives of, outright murder, "cure" and generally be awful towards autistic (and various otherwise-disabled) people. So, yeah, fun times. From Kanner's obstinate insistence on his ridiculously narrow criteria, through the true atrocities done to disabled children in the name of the Aryan ideal, the shameful finger-pointing at parents, ABA, the anti-vaccination bile belched forth by Andrew Wakefield, and just Autism Speaks' very existence, there is a lot of incredibly upsetting things in here and for large portions it was emotionally tough going, though always also thoroughly interesting.

There is some light in there too though, thank goodness. The opening few chapters are only loosely connected really, putting forth the (pretty credible) theory that several of history's most notable scientists were able to make some of the biggest discoveries because of their autistic traits and focus. Turns out, Henry Cavendish is a fascinating man and, though his being on the spectrum is pure speculation, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about him and so can overlook the slightly tenuous reason for his inclusion. And, much as I found reading about Kanner infuriating and frustrating, reading about Asperger was fascinating, what he was doing at pretty much the same time was so fundamentally different and so much closer to the understanding we have today, it's a real shame that it was his research and theories that faded into obscurity for so long. And I can't even begin to list the many other people, doctors, psychiatrists, parents, and most importantly autistic people themselves, who were shining beacons of goodness and respect in the quagmire.

And in the final chapters we get to the more joyous aspects of being autistic, the emergence of science-fiction and the fandom communities it produced, the wonder that is the internet, and the glorious emergence of self-advocacy and neurodiversity. Self-advocacy is something I feel strongly about so I was very pleased to see things like ASAN, Wrong Planet, and "nothing about us, without us" being discussed, along with acknowledgments that services, accommodations and society accepting and adapting to the fact that we exist right here and now are what we want and need, not the cause or "cure" that Autism Speaks (who seriously need to get the fuck off my planet) and their vile-ilk are so obsessed with. I wish this section could have been longer but sadly it is still a pretty recent thing and there's a lot less to say about it in comparison to what came before.

This is by no means a perfect book, there are parts that are a little overly dense, and a few where I got a little jumbled as to who was who, but I am clearly biased by my personal connection to the subject matter and am willing to forgive it all. I find myself very much liking Silberman too. So, yeah, I pretty much loved this, difficult as it was at times, just make sure you know what you're getting when you go in. Ok, stop rambling Stacey, go make a cup of tea and happy stim.