Book Reviews 595 of torture being used to discipline black children in these programmes. In 1965, their ongoing collaborations led to the creation of a psychiatric ward in Harlem Hospital and an innovative paraprofessional programme that created a pipeline for black mental health

of torture being used to discipline black children in these programmes. In 1965, their ongoing collaborations led to the creation of a psychiatric ward in Harlem Hospital and an innovative paraprofessional programme that created a pipeline for black mental health practitioners. Their efforts successfully reduced racial disparities in psychiatric care. But these well-meaning crusaders could not avoid colour-blind liberalism’s intrinsic pitfalls. In the courts, their humanitarian efforts garnered resentment from defendants who viewed their interventions as punitive forms of domination. In their psychiatric evaluations, mental health professionals relied heavily on therapeutic standards derived from research conducted on the white middle class. As a result, their evaluations often failed to account for the greater diversity of human psychology present in Harlem and they inadvertently re-encoded derogatory racial stereotypes onto members of Harlem’s poor and working classes. Under the guise of class and gender differences, they labelled many of Harlem’s women, families and children as ‘broken’, ‘damaged’ or ‘pathological’. In one programme, developed at Harlem Hospital to treat postpartum psychosis, crusaders appeared to sanction a uniquely troubling form of discrimination. Intended to give impoverished women better control over their reproductive capabilities, this programme provided access to voluntary sterilisations. Although administered by Elizabeth Davis, a black psychiatrist who had long been committed to serving Harlem’s mental health needs, it raised the ire of the community’s radical activists, many of whom felt it suborned genocide. In these and other humanitarian endeavours, crusaders regularly failed to recognise the complicity of their work in long-standing traditions of discrimination. Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem is copiously researched, is nuanced in its historical analysis and offers a well-crafted narrative. Its somewhat pragmatic title may suggest the editorial team underestimated its greater significance. But Doyle’s text is an essential contribution to a growing field of research on African Americans, race and the history of medicine. It is critical reading for anyone interested in the historic relationship between psychiatry, mental health disparities, mass incarceration and twentieth-century civil rights activism. It intersects well with the established works of Khalil Muhammad, Jonathan Metzl and Martha Biondi and is a seminal contribution to the emerging subfield of historical research on black health in Harlem. Doyle’s work complements studies by Tanya Hart and Jamie Wilson and is intimately tied with Gabriel Mendes’ rich work on the Lafargue Clinic. Doyle also provides a timely contribution to the contemptuous discourse on healthcare reform in the United States, reminding us of the essential link between health and citizenship and the enduring impact of race on the understanding of what it means to be human.