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Through the moving stories of real people, neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan explores the complex world of modern diagnosis, comparing the impact of a medical label to the pain of not knowing. With scientific authority and compassionate storytelling, she opens up new possibilities for how we might approach our health and our suffering.

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.

In Britain alone, more than 20 per cent of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500 per cent since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of mental illness of all types have actually increased in number and severity. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem.