A review by ehmannky
Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

dark informative

3.5

A comprehensive look at the history of Crownsville Hospital and, to a lesser degree, about the ways that the white-dominated fields of law and psychology have led to a direct line between enslavement to mental health institutionalization to mass incarceration that we see today. Hylton does an admirable job at making a comprehensive story around this place given that so many of the records of Crownsville were destroyed by negligence and an active desire to keep some of the Crownsville history secret. There were times that I did not love the way that the book was structured, but the content is important enough that that's easily overlooked. 
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