Nothing About Us Without Us is the first book in the literature on disability to provide a theoretical overview of disability oppression that shows its similarities to, and differences from, racism, sexism, and colonialism. Charlton's analysis is illuminated by interviews he conducted over a ten-year period with disability rights activists throughout the Third World, Europe, and the United States. Charlton finds an antidote for dependency and powerlessness in the resistance to disability oppression that is emerging worldwide. His interviews contain striking stories of self-reliance and empowerment evoking the new consciousness of disability rights activists. As a latecomer among the world's liberation movements, the disability rights movement will gain visibility and momentum from Charlton's elucidation of its history and its political philosophy of self-determination, which is captured in the title of his book. Nothing About Us Without Us expresses the conviction of people with disabilities that they know what is best for them. Charlton's combination of personal involvement and theoretical awareness assures greater understanding of the disability rights movement.

    Freedom is reserved only for markets in a society increasingly strangled by corporate of power".Empowerment" is the new definition of destitution.By looking at the struggles of the disabled faced with the end of social services, Ending the Social Contract as We Know It provides a powerful warning: the disabled are as canaries in a coal mine, and their maltreatment is a harbinger of things to come for the rest of us.In a tightly woven argument, Marta Russell shows how the onslaught of corporate power facing the disabled -- from issues like genetic screening, to restricted access to health care, to welfare reform -- will shortly be faced by a much broader segment of society.

    Lerner offers the first in-depth look at the history of tuberculosis control in the antibiotic era, providing a vital account of this neglected chapter in the history of the disease. He argues that the new antibiotic drugs, rather than being a simple panacea, actually highlighted the complex social problems that continued to predispose people to tuberculosis and interfere with its treatment. The most controversial strategy used by American health officers to control tuberculosis was forcible detention. Since 1903, Lerner notes, health departments have locked up tuberculosis patients whose behavior presented a public health threat. Using Seattle's Firland Sanatorium as a case study, he focuses on the surprisingly recent use of detention, between 1950 and 1970. Although Firland planned to use confinement only as a last resort, Lerner explains, the facility detained nearly 2,000 patients, most of them alcoholics from Seattle's famous "Skid Road." In retrospect, it is clear that Firland staff members overused detention. But Lerner also finds that they worked hard to improve the lives of the alcoholic patients society had forgotten.