On Kindness

What is kindness? Does it make us happier? And does it have a place in a selfish world? 
 
Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor present an elegant, thoughtful and concise analysis of kindness in history, in life and in the modern world. Suggesting that acts of kindness occur when we are at our most open and honest, they ask why it is that our faith in kindness has been shaken - and why we are all too ready to believe that antagonism has taken its place.

Barbara Taylor

Eloquent, compassionate, and utterly absorbing . . . The Last Asylum is the best sort of memoir, transcending the purely personal to confront a larger social history

Beautiful . . . it is hard to write well enough about this book because it is so good

Superb. Riveting, insightful and relentlessly honest

An impressive book, strong on narrative, deeply felt and measured in tone... The Last Asylum will stand the test of time.

A gripping (often painful) account of madness, a fascinating description of psychoanalysis, a historical reflection on asylums and a meditation of the interrelationships between care and cure... Unsparing [and] subtly theoretical, an endeavor not only worth reading, but worth emulating.

A fascinating if harrowing journey . . . Taylor is a deft and engaging historian

Barbara Taylor's [memoir] is not to be missed . . . An extraordinarily measured, fascinating and honest account, that stands out within the genre... Her book can be compared with Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk . . . Barbara Taylor is to be applauded for an important and original contribution

A Memoir of Madness in our Times

In July 1988, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, was admitted to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institution: Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, later known as Friern Hospital. 
 
This searingly honest, thought-provoking and beautifully written memoir is the story of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of the death of the asylum system in the twentieth century. It is a meditation on her own experience of breakdown and healing, but also that of the millions of other people who have suffered, are suffering, will suffer mental illness.

Barbara Taylor

Praise for The Last Asylum

Eloquent, compassionate, and utterly absorbing . . . The Last Asylum is the best sort of memoir, transcending the purely personal to confront a larger social history

Beautiful . . . it is hard to write well enough about this book because it is so good

A wise, considered and timely book

Eloquent, compassionate, and utterly absorbing . . . The Last Asylum is the best sort of memoir, transcending the purely personal to confront a larger social history

Beautiful . . . it is hard to write well enough about this book because it is so good

A wise, considered and timely book

Eloquent, compassionate, and utterly absorbing . . . The Last Asylum is the best sort of memoir, transcending the purely personal to confront a larger social history

Beautiful . . . it is hard to write well enough about this book because it is so good

A wise, considered and timely book

Books by Barbara Taylor

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