| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Self, Senility, and Alzheimer's Disease in Modern America: A History. By Jesse F. Ballenger. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. xx, 236 pp. $43.00, ISBN 0-8018-8276-1.)

Alzheimer's disease conjures up frightening images for most Americans, largely because it is associated with the loss of one's self. Yet for much of the twentieth century this diagnostic category was obscure and aroused neither interest nor concern. Senility and dementia existed in the medical lexicon, but were associated with the natural process of aging. How and why did the category of Alzheimer's disease replace senility and dementia? What were the consequences of that shift, and why did it arouse so much concern? In an imaginative and illuminating manner Jesse F. Ballenger explores those and other important questions. His book is not a narrow monograph; rather, it places historical understanding and knowledge about dementia within a broad social and cultural context.

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