Hispanic American Historical Review (2018) 98 (4): 736-738.
Reasoning against Madness offers a nuanced and sophisticated analysis of the emergence and development of psychiatry in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on its complex and evolving relationship with the imperial and republican state. The book examines the evolution of Carioca psychiatry, from the process that led to the establishment of the Hospício Dom Pedro II (later renamed the Hospício Nacional de Alienados) in the mid-nineteenth century to the diffusion of psychoanalysis in the twentieth.