Strong Imagination: Madness, Creativity and Human Nature

![][1] Daniel Nettle Oxford University Press, £16.99, pp 235 ISBN 019 850706 2 Rating: ![Graphic][2] ![Graphic][3] ![Graphic][4] What are brains for? Why does madness exist? Why is human culture obsessed with creativity? These striking questions punctuate this thought provoking book, as it explores the relation between madness and creativity. The first half elegantly surveys affective illness and schizophrenia, with a fresh explanation of the biological, psychological, and social aspects of causation, and a helpful precis of the history of psychiatry (including the mistakes of the “antipsychiatry” movement). … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif [2]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif [3]: /embed/inline-graphic-2.gif [4]: /embed/inline-graphic-3.gif