Wild Beasts & Idle Humours: The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present

Rating:
Summary: Not for the Non-Specialist Reader
Review: Daniel N. Robinson's Wild Beasts and Idle Humours (The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present) sounds and looks more fun than it actually will be for the average reader without a sure grounding in legal, philosophical and psychological theory and history. The author does indeed cover the period from antiquity to the present, as per the sub-title, and provides many interesting ideas along the way, taking a rather conservative approach, but there are also many cases and people just dropped into the book without any explanation on the assumption that the reader will be familiar with all of these legal cases and philosophers from the past two centuries. A grounding in classical and medieval history (with luck I did have that) will help the reader manage the first part of the book. For students of legal history, this book could prove quite interesting and, perhaps, invaluable as the author makes a clever attempt to bring ideas of insanity as far back as the writings of Homer and Hesiod. For this poor soul, the book was a struggle with a few rewards along the way.