Whitaker, Robert

Examines long-term case studies on mental illness in the United States and the effects of psychiatric drugs, covering the published results of these studies as well as alternative programs that are producing positive outcomes.

Examines the history of medical treatments for the mentally ill in America since the mid-eighteenth century, focusing on people diagnosed with schizophrenia, and attempts to discover why individuals who suffer psychotic breaks in the U.S. and other developed countries fare so poorly.

Tells the story of Isabel Grameson, an upper-class Peruvian woman who in 1741 married Jean Godin, a member of a team of French mapmakers exploring South America, focusing on her three-thousand-mile trek down the length of the Amazon to reach her husband after they were separated on opposite sides of the continent--victims of international politics.