#2: Steve Silberman, Neurotribes

[kareila]

Subtitled "The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity", this is an engaging and informative overview of the history of our understanding of autism spectrum disorders, focusing on the lives and personalities of the people who have had the most direct impact on the evolution of that understanding, as well as several case histories. The book would benefit from content warnings (the chapter describing the treatment of disabled children in Nazi Germany was particularly disturbing) but overall I felt that it was a hopeful book, with a particular emphasis toward the end on promoting understanding and accommodation for autistic individuals, trying to change society to work for them instead of the other way around.

As an aside, I have noticed that when reading nonfiction books on the Kindle, the percentage indicator becomes misleading when there is a large amount of supplemental material such as a content index. When I finished the narrative here, I was only at 67% complete according to total book length. As if anyone is expected to read straight through an index...