DSM

"DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible is the first comprehensive account of American psychiatry's growing obsession with diagnosis, and the massive flaws that have undermined this project. Horwitz's book is a remarkable achievement, a richly detailed account of the blind alley psychiatrists have wandered down and of the crisis that now confronts the profession."—Andrew Scull, University of California-San Diego, author of Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity from the Bible to Freud

"In this ironically-titled book, Horwitz, one of the leading social scientists of psychiatry, recounts how the DSM has led psychiatry not into a promised land but a wasteland. Horwitz tells this dramatic, epochal story at a good clip, on the basis of original research, and with a firm understanding that it is a story about society, not about 'medicine.'"—Edward Shorter, University of Toronto, coauthor of The Madness of Fear: A History of Catatonia

"Meticulous and incisive, this book charts the standardization of American psychiatric diagnoses since 1952. It details how a thin, spiral-bound volume first known as Medical 203 grew into a massive tome currently diagnosing 541 psychiatric conditions and selling millions of copies worldwide. For Horwitz, an excellent guide to its many quirks and revisions, 'the constantly changing nature of the DSM is its most interesting feature.'"—Christopher Lane, Northwestern University, author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness

"His close look at the DSM is a meticulous blow-by-blow, tracking its evolution in the context of shifting psychiatric care, expanding disease taxonomy, growing pharmaceutical influence, emerging social movements, and a diverse array of personalities and identities (trans, queer) classified as disorders."—Amy Biancolli, MAD IN AMERICA

"Horowitz tells this sorry tale with skill and panache... It is the best synthetic account of this territory anyone has produced to date."—Andrew Scull, UC San Diego, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Horwitz retains a scrupulous objectivity; but nonetheless, the tale he tells is of one of the most resounding and damaging follies of modern scientism."—Will Self, Spectator

"Allan Horwitz is to be congratulated on a fine book that deserves to be read by everyone concerned about the state of psychiatry."—Robert M Kaplan, University of Western Sydney, Australia, Sushruta Health Policy & Opinions