Administrations of Lunacy: A Story of Racism and Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum

Administrations of Lunacy is a dispassionate account of the facts of the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville GA, USA. Released 14th April by The New Press, it's 384 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

This is an unflinching and unflattering deconstruction of the history of (at one time) the largest facility for treating and housing the mentally ill in the world. In continuous operation since December 1842 and now largely defunct, it's a huge sprawling (and mostly abandoned) complex of over 200 buildings on 2000 acres of land. Author Mab Segrest knits the facts and bald history of the place together with the systemic, wilful, historical administration and in-baked racist policies and treatment that people of color received throughout the institution's almost 180 year history.

Especially in the greater context of the continuing painful racist brutality that is rampant in the world today, this was a very difficult but important read. I found that I had to put the book down and walk away and think about and process the information at several points. The author is unsparing. There are frank discussions of (to modern people) barbaric, cruel, and senseless "treatments" and processes. The author's historical examination of eugenics as practiced by the non-consensual sterilization of inmates, torture, lobotomization, and other procedures is unstinting. The notes and references are academically rigorous, plentiful, and well organized.

General information and historical background are alternated throughout the book with personal stories of inmates (where known) or professionals employed in the care and operation of the facility. The author quotes a former staff member, Joe Ingram,  when she devastatingly writes that there are "Rows upon rows of numbered, small, rusted markers as far as you can see... it must be the most gruesome sight in Georgia. Unknown humans, shunned when living, deprived of their very names in death... and literally known only to God".

Difficult reading. This would make a superlative adjunct text for related subjects, history of medicine, gender and race studies, psychiatry, mental health issues, public health, and so forth.

Four stars. Readers should certainly be prepared for triggering subject matter. It makes for grim reading.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.