The Routledge History of Disability

"Taking a truly global view of disability history, The Routledge History of Disability brings together an impressive range of scholarship that places the lives of individuals with disabilities in their social, cultural and historical context. Moving beyond the national or local focus of many disability histories, and exploring a variety of impairments, The Routledge History of Disability provides a means for examining disability history comparatively, shedding new light on how social policy, education and civil rights have evolved in different parts of the world."

David Turner, Swansea University, UK

"This book is timely and phenomenal in nationally and internationally highlighting historical events that have affected disabled people. It exposes the origins of issues and controversies about disability, interpreting historical documents and legislation and discussing significant topics such as the eugenics movement and the civil rights movement."

Irene Carter, University of Windsor, Canada

"In many ways, The Routledge History of Disability is an impressive work: twenty-eight chapters, forty-nine authors, nineteen countries or geographic regions, and more than two thousand years of human history. Contributors to The Routledge History of Disability cover topics familiar to disability studies scholars and disability historians, such as the freak show, eugenics, and Nazi Germany. There are also less familiar topics included in this volume, such as disability in Nigeria, Belgian-Congo, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Authors write on topics as varied as gender and disability in ancient Greece and "dull" students in a Norwegian folk school. They ponder societal responses to "the intellectually disabled" and expose developments in disability issues in Ottoman Turkey. The scope of the material presented in The Routledge History of Disability alone ma