James W. Trent uses public documents, private letters, investigative reports, and rare photographs to explore our changing perceptions of mental retardation over the past 150 years. He contends that the economic vulnerability of mentally retarded people (and their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual or social limitations, has determined their institutional treatment.

James W. Trent, Jr. is Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Work at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

"Trent traces the long, catastrophic narrative of alienation, institutionalization, pathology, abuse, sterilization, neglect, rescue, and again, abuse."—Janet Lyon and Michael Bèrubè, Voice Literary Supplement

"A trail-blazing survey of the developments in the United States from the early nineteenth century right up to the present."—Roy Porter, Times Literary Supplement

"This well-written history of mental retardation documents our changing perceptions of the 'feebleminded.' . . . This is must reading for anyone interested in this vital subject. Replete with shocking photographs and a 40-page reference list. A shattering document."—Psychoanalytic Books

Hervey B. Wilbur Award of the American Association on Mental Retardation