Manic depression is a frustrating mess… –
April 24, 2019 – “The story Harrington tells is one of push-and-pull, back-and-forth …I ntricate and winding, though her prose remains clear and crisp.”
– Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
“Superb … nuanced … In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington has written an excellent, engaging guide to what biological psychiatry has accomplished—and not accomplished—so far.”
– Richard J. McNally, Wall Street Journal
“A tale of promising roads that turned out to be dead ends, of treatments that seemed miraculous in their day but barbaric in retrospect, of public-health policies that were born in hope but destined for disaster … Of value to historians of medicine.”
– Gary Greenberg, Atlantic
“Masterful … Harrington’s grasp of this story and the clarity with which, with limited moralism, she delivers a tale about the ‘big picture’ of psychiatry and neurology is emblematic of the historian’s craft.”
– Stephen T. Casper, Science
“The shortcomings of current ideas in the causes and treatments of mental disease are clearly documented. [Harrington’s] insights into the social aspects of treatment deserve to be addressed.”
– Donald F. Calbreath, New York Journal of Books
