Host dr. Dinah miller you write in your book shrink rap that psychiatry is a controversial medical field. Why . Guest well i think part of it is because of the history of psychiatry. Certainly its a field that has floundered with how to diagnose, how to treat, some of the treatments have not gone so well. For example the lobotomy phase that was very brief and i think part of the confusion with diagnosis that birthed some controversy is that with the exception of psychosis of people who hear voices or see visions or have delusional beliefs, that all the other symptoms blow into the rom of the usual Human Experience. Even the psychotic symptoms sometimes bore into the round of the usual Human Experience depending on the culture. So in some cultures you might be considered special if you have these issues and certainly somebody might say i hear a voice and its the voice of the dead relative calling me. We wouldnt consider that a psychosis. We would call that a carl terrell phenomenon a cu
Host you are watching booktv on cspan2, 48 hours of nonfiction books about airs every weekend. We are on location at Johns Hopkins university in baltimore talking with professors who are authors and joining us now is andrew cherlin. Professor cherlin would you do at the university . Guest im a professor of sociology. I teach courses on the family, demography poverty childrens welfare. Host and you are chair of the Sociology Department . What does that mean . Guest that means i get to toss around a lot of people who have lifetime tenure and tell them what to do. Host we want to talk to you about your book labors love lost the rise and fall of the workingclass family in america. How do you define a workingclass family . Guest its pretty hard. Its a family with a guy who was working a factory or a construction job in the wife staying home many working parttime in a couple of kids. That is what the working class was like in the 1950s and 60s at its peak. You cant define it these days becau
Do you teach that and why is it important . Guest im fortunate this year at hopkins to be able to teach it personal to undergraduates. Secondly to our wonderful group, graduate students. And thirdly, to medical students. Why is it important . I think its important because science and medicine are so important in a culture today and science and medicine are the products of human beings and human activities and so if we understand science and medicine and now its really produced by real human beings, not textbook definitions of scientific medicine, then we understand as the product and we understand the things they it can do for us and its frailties. So its an opportunity to reflect on the nature that is really important part of our culture. Host do you come from a historic history background or medical background . Guest i come from a history background. In fact, as a high school and even College Student i shied away from science a bit. I came to the history of science and medicine beca
Youre watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. BookTv Television for serious readers. From my father i inherited my confidence my resilience, my passion, and my audacity, looking back although it was never explained to me in this way, he taught me the spirit of which is greek idea of honor and doing the right thing, even when ones own interests or even ones own life is in peril. Growing up while i never fought anything but australian there were two stories about the Second World War and greece that i always kept close to my heart. The first was in 1940 when Benito Mussolini italys Prime Minister asked the greek Prime Minister for free passage through greece and on the spot at 3 00 in the morning without hesitation, without consultation he said oy he said no. It was spirited defiance and quite incredible when considering just how vastly outnumbered the greeks were by the italians. It prompted sir winston churchhill, the greatest figure of the 20th c
In camp the encampment so i was at the encampment, you walk a ground and learn more about it but you understand the writing and i try to have that reflected in my work. In that sense i view myself as a historian. I dont write historical fiction but i am inspired by historical fiction and love to read historical fiction. And James Mcpherson catches it in the battle cry of freedom. Is a wonderful book. Ft cant trust everything in it as fact but it does give you the sense of the place. I try to use a lot of quotations because i try to make which makes differentiating to me from some historians, but i try to have an eye for the quote that really captures something. I never use a long block and [inaudible] quote. When i read, i always skip those. I figure if the author cant summarize it why is he forcing me to do it . So i use small quotes, ones that are below 50 words so you dont have to block in denim. Then i figure thats my job as a historian, to pull out the quirks of it. And if theres