Background
MacDonald, Michael Patrick was born on July 29, 1945 in Portland, Oregon, United States. Son of Rodney Franklyn and Virginia Lee (Jackson) MacDonald.
(Sleepless Souls is a social and cultural history of suici...)
Sleepless Souls is a social and cultural history of suicide in early modern England. It traces the rise and fall of the crime of self-murder and explores the reasons why suicide came to be harshly punished in the sixteenth century, and why it was gradually decriminalized in the century and a half following the English Revolution. Michael MacDonald and Terence R. Murphy employ a wide range of records from the period between 1500 and 1800 in order to place suicide in its contemporary context, and relate its history to political events, religious changes, philosophical fashions, tensions between central government and local communities, class interests, and the communication media. The authors treat the crisis of death by suicide as a lens in which the forces that reshaped the mental outlook of different classes and social groups are reflected.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198204507/?tag=2022091-20
(Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity o...)
Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity of early seventeenth-century England by means of a detailed analysis of the records of Richard Napier, a clergyman and astrological physician, who treated over 2000 mentally disturbed patients between 1597 and 1634. Napier's clients were drawn from every social rank and his therapeutic techniques included all the types of psychological healing practised at the time. His vivid descriptions of his clients' afflictions and complaints illuminate the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people. This book goes beyond simply analysing mental disorder in a seventeenth-century astrological and medical practice. It reveals contemporary attitudes towards family life, describes the appeal of witchcraft and demonology to ordinary villagers, and explains the social and intellectual basis for the eclectic blend of scientific, magical, and religious therapies practised before the English Revolution. Not only is it a contribution to the history of medicine but also a survey of some of the darkest regions of the mental world of the English people of the seventeenth century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521231701/?tag=2022091-20
(Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity o...)
Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity of early seventeenth-century England by means of a detailed analysis of the records of Richard Napier, a clergyman and astrological physician, who treated over 2000 mentally disturbed patients between 1597 and 1634. Napier's clients were drawn from every social rank and his therapeutic techniques included all the types of psychological healing practised at the time. His vivid descriptions of his clients' afflictions and complaints illuminate the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people. This book goes beyond simply analysing mental disorder in a seventeenth-century astrological and medical practice. It reveals contemporary attitudes towards family life, describes the appeal of witchcraft and demonology to ordinary villagers, and explains the social and intellectual basis for the eclectic blend of scientific, magical, and religious therapies practised before the English Revolution. Not only is it a contribution to the history of medicine but also a survey of some of the darkest regions of the mental world of the English people of the seventeenth century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052127382X/?tag=2022091-20
MacDonald, Michael Patrick was born on July 29, 1945 in Portland, Oregon, United States. Son of Rodney Franklyn and Virginia Lee (Jackson) MacDonald.
Bachelor, Reed College, 1968. Master of Arts in English, State University of New York, 1970. Doctor of Philosophy in History, Stanford University, 1979.
Assistant professor humanities Reed College, Portland, 1975—1977. From assistant professor to professor history University Wisconsin, Madison, 1977—1988. Professor history University Michigan, Ann Arbor, since 1988.
(Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity o...)
(Mystical Bedlam explores the social history of insanity o...)
(Sleepless Souls is a social and cultural history of suici...)
Fellow: Royal History Society. Member: Midwest Conference on British Studies (president 1992-1994), North America Conference on British Studies (executive secretary 1993-1995, Love prize 1986).
Married Carol Wilson Dickerman, May 26, 1979 (divorced June 1999).