MCC Library Newsletter

NetLibrary: Invisible China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands
by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson
Chicago Review Press, 2009

In this eloquent and eye-opening adventure narrative, Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson, two Americans fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Uyghur, throw away the guidebook and bring a hitherto unexplored side of China to light. They journey over 14,000 miles by bus and train to the farthest reaches of the country to meet the minority peoples who dwell there, talking to farmers in their fields, monks in their monasteries, fishermen on their skiffs, and herders on the steppe.

In Invisible China, they engage in a heated discussion of human rights with Daur and Ewenki village cadres; celebrate Muhammad’s birthday with aging Dongxiang hajjis who recount the government’s razing of their mosque; attend mass with old Catholic Kinh fishermen at a church that has been forty years without a priest; hike around high-altitude Lugu Lake to farm with the matrilineal Mosuo women; and descend into a dry riverbed to hunt for jade with Muslim Uyghur merchants. As they uncover surprising facts about China’s hidden minorities and their complex position in Chinese society, they discover the social ramifications of inconsistent government policies–and some deep human truths as well.

To read the November NetLibrary eBook of the Month, access NetLibrary through the library’s web site and click on the eBook of the Month option on the NetLibrary home page.

PsychiatryOnline: Changing American Psychiatry
A Personal Perspective
Melvin Sabshin, M.D.
Foreword by James H. Scully Jr., M.D.

Psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, other mental health workers, behavioral scientists, and university medical and neuroscience professionals will benefit from this articulate insider’s view of post–World War II psychiatry in Changing American Psychiatry: A Personal Perspective by Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Dr. Sabshin served as Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for 23 years, from 1974 to 1997, during a period of perhaps the greatest change in psychiatry since the World War II produced a dramatic modification of practice.

The author describes in detail two extraordinary periods of change, the first stimulated by laudatory efforts to understand the high rate of psychiatric casualties among World War II veterans and to provide treatment for them. Psychiatry grew quickly during the postwar years, considerably influenced by the immigration of many Central European psychoanalysts. Gradually, however, psychiatry began to weaken its ties to medicine and lost much of its public respect. By the 1970s, postwar optimism had been replaced by widespread concern that psychiatric practice was being dominated by unsubstantiated formulations rather than reliable evidence. Psychiatry was dramatically impacted by enormous pressure for therapeutic accountability exerted by a managed care reimbursement system. The profession recognized the need for a new direction and resolved to change.

In the foreword to the book, current APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D., notes that Dr. Sabshin has woven a personal journey of the history of the intellectual conflicts and changes in the field of psychiatry in the post–war era, culminating in the remedicalization of psychiatry and the development of the DSM-III.

To access the PsychiatryOnline November eBook of the Month, click on the “Download PDF” link located with the title of the book on the PsychiatryOnline home page.