God, Money, and Politics

English Attitudes to Blindness and Touch, from the Enlightenment to Integration

By:
Simon Hayhoe, Canterbury Christ Church University / London School of Economics

Published 2008

Note: Author Simon Hayhoe was intervied on BBC Radio 4 in August, 2008. Click here for the transcript.

Our book examines the role of three factors, God, Money, and Politics, in the epistemological theory of blindness, (the theory of the construction of knowledge on blindness and touch by social and cultural change). This book also illustrates this development has, in the main, been motivated by an attempt to assert or gain power and why the study of blindness in conventional academic subjects such as psychology, history and sociology is so important. We do this by presenting the main theories of disability and blindness that have informed the writing of this book, and a frame of reference for the historical story. Which places the book in the broad context of theories of disability and blindness, within an academic and symbolic context of physical impairment and the social mythologies that accompany such understanding.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 1 Introduction: From Enlightenment to Integration. 2 Definitions and the Early Studies of Blindness and Touch. 3 Modern Studies of Blindness and Touch. 4 Vocational Education in English Schools for the Blind. 5 Aesthetics and Touch in English Schools for the Blind. 6 Legal Integration in English Education. 7 Conclusion. Bibliography

REVIEWS
"God, Money and Politics delivers what it promises in the title. The discussion of attitudes to blindness or, more accurately, visual impairments is divided into themes of religious, financial and political influences and their impact on cultural attitudes toward people with visual impairments. The reader is likely to finish the book understanding more about the considerable roles these factors have played in shaping social understandings of blindness and visual impairment." Alison Wilde