Empire of Normality

Neurodiversity and Capitalism

by Robert Chapman

Hardcover, 224 pages

English language

Published Oct. 22, 2023 by Pluto Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-7453-4866-7

(3 reviews)

'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 …

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.

2 editions

Bastian Greshake Tzovaras reviewed Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman

when eugenics & capitalism conspire

No rating

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.

pdotb@wyrms.de reviewed Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman

Good on history, somewhat weaker as a manifesto

4 stars

Interesting stuff on eugenics, the anti-psychiatry movement and particularly its links with libertarian thinking, the history of neurodiversity, and the way disability and capitalism interact. The concluding chapter or two felt like an attempt to sketch out a way forward, but seemed a little too tentative for me.

Bastian Greshake Tzovaras

rated it

10 months ago

Subjects

salute mentale