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Page-Barbour Lectures
Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses
Thus begins the recorded case history of Albert Dadas, a native of France's Bordeaux region and the first diagnosed mad traveller or fugueur. Dadas suffered from a strange compulsion that led him to travel compulsively, often without identification, not knowing who he was or why he travelled. He became notorious for his extraordinary expeditions to such far reaching places as Algeria, Moscow and Constantinople. Medical reports of Dadas set off a small epidemic of compulsive mad voyagers throughout France, Italy, Germany and Russia.Today we are similarly besieged by mental illnesses of the moment such as chronic fatigue syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The debate rages about which of these conditions are affectations or cultural artefacts and which are 'real'.This book uses the Dadas case to weigh the legitimacy of cultural versus physical symptoms in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. He argues that the psychological symptoms find stable homes at a give
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Ian Hacking
59 books135 followersIan Hacking is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, specialised in the History of Science.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 17, 2018
I really expected to love this book, but I found myself disliking Ian Hacking's tone throughout. I enjoy a bit of wry, ironic distance, but his attitude veers on insensitive all too often. Despite his presentation of his materials concerning transient mental illnesses being odd and interesting, these labels described real people with real lives, who were affected in real ways by these labels.
Hacking strikes me as one who, like so many other academics, can craft a witty phrase or strike an amusing pose because they themselves have never been in the situation they describe. I'm not accusing him of a lack of empathy, for this comes out from time to time, but of feigning to be a floating, removed subject from his material. There was a persistent lack of situatedness made worse by his sentences that seemed to uniformly say "isn't that curious?" He reminds me in this way of a museum tour guide giddily recounting medieval torture scenes. There's something off about it. For someone who speaks so positively about "pragmatism", and "what concepts do", he writes like he hasn't had many personal, active experiences with his material outside of the library, and I find that to be off-putting.
Hacking strikes me as one who, like so many other academics, can craft a witty phrase or strike an amusing pose because they themselves have never been in the situation they describe. I'm not accusing him of a lack of empathy, for this comes out from time to time, but of feigning to be a floating, removed subject from his material. There was a persistent lack of situatedness made worse by his sentences that seemed to uniformly say "isn't that curious?" He reminds me in this way of a museum tour guide giddily recounting medieval torture scenes. There's something off about it. For someone who speaks so positively about "pragmatism", and "what concepts do", he writes like he hasn't had many personal, active experiences with his material outside of the library, and I find that to be off-putting.
February 5, 2010
Interesting concept, but felt like the story got lost in all the details/facts he cites. Found intro & first chapter most compelling. Also like his tone, kind of familiar and wry.
August 18, 2016
This book is as madly tangential and confusing as the travellers themselves. Someone check the author in for an assessment.
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June 1, 2021Highly interesting topic but the writing is structurally too distracted for me. Maybe it's because they are lectures.
January 13, 2019
I couldn’t even finish this book. I really expected to love it, and purposely searched used book sellers to find a copy for purchase. However, now I can absolutely appreciate why it is out of print.
I found it poorly organized and not suitable as a book. The author organized the book through 4 “lectures”, 3 “supplements,” and 6 “documents.” The “lectures” certainly would have been fascinating oral presentations, but did not work well in print form - which was frustrating. I also found the author to be talking about people and situations not clearly described and of which I therefore had a poor understanding, unless I jumped back and forth throughout the “lectures” and “documents.”
I read about 100 pages before I gave up, as this work was disappointing. It could have easily been made an excellent book.
I found it poorly organized and not suitable as a book. The author organized the book through 4 “lectures”, 3 “supplements,” and 6 “documents.” The “lectures” certainly would have been fascinating oral presentations, but did not work well in print form - which was frustrating. I also found the author to be talking about people and situations not clearly described and of which I therefore had a poor understanding, unless I jumped back and forth throughout the “lectures” and “documents.”
I read about 100 pages before I gave up, as this work was disappointing. It could have easily been made an excellent book.
February 11, 2010
wonderful mind, quirky diction, lots of necessary redundancy, but a significant package of autonomous thinking, well worth a staccato perusal
May 8, 2016
Fascinating account of dissociative fugue
April 26, 2019
One of the most entertaining books I've had the pleasure of reading on this sort of subject. The essential thesis is to suggest, by no means for the first time, that a particular diagnosis of a perceived pattern of behaviour, is always culturally and historically specific. It is very apt to be reminded of this when looking at a detailed case study from many decades ago because this proliferation of mental illness, quote unquote, has seemingly never been as intense as it is in these days of DM5. But it is not a novel set of circumstances.
As professions fragment and specialise they find new problems to investigate, and finer grained distinctions emerge within these. Hacking draws a telling analogy between the notion of an ecological niche, where an organism can thrive, and a time and a place where an illness can become knowable, researchable, to some extent real.
Thoroughly recommended.
As professions fragment and specialise they find new problems to investigate, and finer grained distinctions emerge within these. Hacking draws a telling analogy between the notion of an ecological niche, where an organism can thrive, and a time and a place where an illness can become knowable, researchable, to some extent real.
Thoroughly recommended.
July 16, 2019
Was on my to-read list for years, and did not disappoint. Hacking has great gifts of clarity.
November 28, 2021
There is a 4/5 book here somewhere...but felt a little bloated even though it's only 200 pages
May 22, 2016
Interesting little book on a curious episode in medical history, the 'discovery', epidemic status, and quick dying out of uncontrollable traveling as a distinct mental illness. Hacking gives a brief rundown of the cultural context of where the illness was first discovered, lots of first person material about the sad case of Albert the first patient, a brief sketch of the state of French psychiatry at the end of the 19th century, and some theories about why this illness both gained and lost its place as a recognized disease. More detailed than a magazine article, but more straightforward than a lot of similar academic literature (I'm looking at you Foucault!), I think this would be of interest to anyone interested in the history of science, and it is just another example of how infinitely strange humanity is.
February 24, 2022
A shock to the way I think about minds and groups, so good! A memorable part of this book talks about being arrested for being a nihilist and then getting whipped by Cossacks =^=
Edit: still think this book is great and the idea of antisocial tendencies is something that is really staying with me
Edit: still think this book is great and the idea of antisocial tendencies is something that is really staying with me
March 18, 2015
3 1/2 stars.
Want to read
September 7, 2017Andrew Solomon called this book remarkable
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews