Hardcover, 224 pages
English language
Published Oct. 22, 2023 by Pluto Press.
'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one of the most oppressive tools of capitalism. To read it is to see the world more clearly' Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes
Neurodiversity is on the rise. Awareness and diagnoses have exploded in recent years, but we are still missing a wider understanding of how we got here and why. Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the 'normal' brain as a product of intensified capitalism.
Exploring the rich histories of the neurodiversity and disability movements, Robert Chapman shows how the rise of capitalism created an 'empire of normality' that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine.
Neurodivergent liberation is possible - but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism. Empire of Normality is an essential guide to understanding the systems …
'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one of the most oppressive tools of capitalism. To read it is to see the world more clearly' Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes
Neurodiversity is on the rise. Awareness and diagnoses have exploded in recent years, but we are still missing a wider understanding of how we got here and why. Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the 'normal' brain as a product of intensified capitalism.
Exploring the rich histories of the neurodiversity and disability movements, Robert Chapman shows how the rise of capitalism created an 'empire of normality' that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine.
Neurodivergent liberation is possible - but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism. Empire of Normality is an essential guide to understanding the systems that shape our bodies, minds and deepest selves - and how we can undo them.
Framing the history of psychiatric definitions of normality in their origins of eugenics, racism, and capitalist to neoliberal emphasis on individual ranking and pathologizing of the ab-normal. Rounds it out with a broad view of the neurodiversity movement in response to the mass-disabling of round-the-clock capitalist consumerist desires and inequalities.
I'll third other reviewers in saying that this book is great, though the end falls off a little.
Broadly, the book covers the history of the eugenics movement (particularly, the history of psychology, how it evolved into eugenics, and then into what we know today as psychology). This part Chapman does really well; there's a lot of very thought provoking connections he draws, and I feel I've learned a lot from it.
In the more brief, latter half, Chapman draws on a lot of work in the development of the neurodivergent movement to make a case for what he calls neurodivergent Marxism, which (very generally) proposes a more revolutionary approach to neurodiverse liberation—namely, one he believes and I agree won't come under the liberal rights framework we've traditionally sought to improve our material conditions under. If you've been exposed to Marxist thought and are neurodivergent, this probably won't feel new …
I'll third other reviewers in saying that this book is great, though the end falls off a little.
Broadly, the book covers the history of the eugenics movement (particularly, the history of psychology, how it evolved into eugenics, and then into what we know today as psychology). This part Chapman does really well; there's a lot of very thought provoking connections he draws, and I feel I've learned a lot from it.
In the more brief, latter half, Chapman draws on a lot of work in the development of the neurodivergent movement to make a case for what he calls neurodivergent Marxism, which (very generally) proposes a more revolutionary approach to neurodiverse liberation—namely, one he believes and I agree won't come under the liberal rights framework we've traditionally sought to improve our material conditions under. If you've been exposed to Marxist thought and are neurodivergent, this probably won't feel new to you, but it is at the very least compelling.
I get the feeling a lot of the value many would get out of this book would be the way it puts language to things you might have once had a hard time talking about, or even really conceptualizing. I know I felt heard reading Empire of Normality, and that in and of itself is really valuable
This book hit very close to home, both on a professional and personal level. Chapman provides a great overview over the historical forces that shape neoliberal capitalism in the 21st century and how the "Empire of Normality" co-evolved alongside it thanks to eugenics and how an increasingly narrow definition of what is "normal" is shaped by capitalist production.
As @pdotb@wyrms.de outlined in their review, the concluding chapters into a way forward are quite broad, but dismantling neoliberal capitalism & "neuro-thatcherism" are grantedly quite big and in a sense far beyond the scope of what one book can provide.
