Harry Oosterhuis and Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstras, Verward van geest en ander ongerief: psychiatrie en geestelijke gezondheidszorg in Nederland (1870–2005), 3 vols, Houten, Bohn Stafleu van Loghum, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 2008, pp. xxvi, 1522, €135.00 (hardback 978-90-313-5238-8).

Abstract

This study is the result of a collaborative research project funded by the Dutch Council for Scientific Research (NWO), which started in 1999. As well as this mammoth-size study, the research group published a series of comparative volumes and separate studies on more specific issues, which have brought the historiography of Dutch psychiatry to a level that is unsurpassed by that of other nations. The crowning glory of this work is this general overview of psychiatry in the Netherlands since 1870 by the project leaders, Harry Oosterhuis of the University of Maastricht, and Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, professor emeritus of the University of Amsterdam. Considering the strong international focus of the project, it is to be deplored that this final study is written in Dutch, also because an English or American university press might have been able to persuade the authors to write more concisely and more explicitly about the specifics of Dutch psychiatry in comparison with that of other western countries.