Disability historian Paul Longmore, who died on August 9, penned this erudite review of Alison Carey's new history of intellectual disability in the U.S., entitled On the Margins of Citizenship: Intellectual Disability and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century America.
Here is an excerpt from the review:
[Carey's] argument is rich and complex, too complicated to be summarized simply. She shows that in every era ideas about intellectual disability and the experience of people with intellectual disabilities have challenged, conflicted with, or operated in tension with formulations of citizenship and rights. Indeed, people with intellectual disabilities have typically been viewed as deficient for full citizenship, often as the opposite of the ideal citizen, and as not only unworthy of citizenship but also dangerous to the well-being of the community and nation. Yet at the same time, American ideas about intellectual disability have never been permanently fixed.
Instead, in each era they have been contested, and they have changed from one era to the next. Despite professional attempts to define intellectual disability with scientific precision, the lived experience of people identified as having those disabilities has varied enormously depending on the historical moments in which they found themselves. Because of those variations, at no time have Americans reached a consensus about the place of people with intellectual disabilities in society and the extent to which they could or should exercise rights. Nondisabled opinion has ranged from demanding their total exclusion to accepting their full equality.
This is a wonderful review, which manages both to educate this reader on some important aspects of 20th century American disability history, as well as offer some key methodological points regarding how to "do" mature and responsible history. The review also successfully contextualizes the richness and promise of the book.
The review is certainly recommended, and I'll let you know about the book just as soon as my book budget is replenished.
(h/t H-DISABILITY)
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