Mesmerized

Alison Winter was associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.

出版者:University Of Chicago Press

作者:Alison Winter

页数:478

出版时间:1998

价格:USD 17.00

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780226902234

图书标签:科学史身体医疗史社会史x18VictorianUKSTS

Thousands of men and women all across Britain in the Victorian age were being mesmerized, twisted into bizarre postures and speaking out in unknown languages, and the Victorians were literally entranced with this phenomenon. The text focuses on mesmerism: who was entranced, who did the entrancing, why mesmerism was such a compelling experience to so many and how it became equally powerful evidence of fraud and "unscientific" behaviour to many others. It illuminates dark areas of the relationship between science and society, allowing the assessment of the role of authority in particular social contexts: who draws the line between the bogus and the authentic and how is the boundary maintained? More fundamentally, what is the nature of the powers that wield, and the influences that bind humans together in a social body?