# Mad in America

**Author(s):** Robert Whitaker
**Unpaid SageChimp rating:** insufficient data (0 unpaid reviews; need 5)
**Verdict JSON:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/mad-in-america/verdict.json
**Genres:** psychology, history
**Pages:** 341
**Publisher:** Perseus Publishing
**Published:** Mon Jan 01 2001 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
**Language:** en
**ISBN-13:** 9780738203850
**ISBN-10:** 0786723793
**ASIN:** B07RJR5PQR
**Amazon categories:** Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > Social Services & Welfare
**Amazon binding:** $12.99
**URL:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/mad-in-america

## Description

In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries, and quite possibly worse than asylum patients did in the early nineteenth century. With a muckraker's passion, Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. Tracing over three centuries of "cures" for madness, Whitaker shows how medical therapies have been used to silence patients and dull their minds. He tells of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practices of "spinning" the insane, extracting their teeth, ovaries, and intestines, and submerging patients in freezing water. The "cures" in the 1920s and 1930s were no less barbaric as eugenic attitudes toward the mentally ill led to brain-damaging lobotomies and electroshock therapy. Perhaps Whitaker's most damning revelation, however, is his report of how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies in an effort to prove the effectiveness of their products. Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, numerous interviews, and hundreds of government documents, Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be "insane," and what we value most about the human mind.

## SageChimp reader verdict

Mad in America has no unpaid published reviews on SageChimp yet. That is not enough to say whether the book is genuinely well-liked or amplified by paid/ARC/BookTok hype. Do not treat Amazon, Goodreads, or social scores as SageChimp evidence.

- **Status:** Not enough unpaid reviews (`insufficient_data`)
- **Paid-hype signal:** Cannot judge paid hype from this sample (`insufficient_data`)
- **Unpaid reviews:** 0
- **ARC / incentivized reviews:** 0
- **Machine-readable:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/mad-in-america/verdict.json

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**Themes:** Mental Illness