A history of the medicalization of insanity. The book is both a history of psychiatry at its birth around the American and French Revolutions, its intellectual evolution from a spiritual theory of madness to a physical theory of madness, to a social theory of madness in the early 19th century. Includes original research at the Hartford Retreat, a madhouse in Hartford, Connecticut. The book won awards and launched Paul Fenn's academic career. Written in 1988.