Harvard Univ. Press (
1996)
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Abstract
"An American psychologist, Daniel N. Robinson, traces the development of
the insanity plea...[He offers] an assured historical survey."
Roy Porter, The Times [UK]
"Wild Beasts and Idle Humours is truly unique. It synthesizes material
that I do not believe has ever been considered in this context, and links
up the historical past with contemporaneous values and politics. Robinson
effortlessly weaves religious history, literary history, medical history,
and political history, and demonstrates how the insanity defense cannot be
fully understood without consideration of all these sources."
Michael L. Perlin, New York Law School
"Daniel N. Robinson has written a graceful history of insanity and the law
stretching from Homer to Hinckley. He attempts no final theory as to how the law should cope with the insane; he seeks, rather, to use the shifting notions of when madness exculpates criminal activity to illuminate the core self-perceptions of the cultures developing ever-evolving resolutions of the problem...[T]he grandeur of the theme...commands attention and respect."
--Neal Johnston, The Nation