Roy Porter  

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Roy Sydney Porter (31 December 1946 — 3 March 2002) was a British historian noted for his prolific work on the history of medicine.

Works

Starting with the publishing of his PhD thesis, as The Making of Geology in 1977, Porter wrote or edited over 100 books, an academic output that was, and is, considered remarkable. He is particularly notable for his work in the history of medicine, in pioneering an approach that focuses on patients rather than doctors. Despite his recognition in the history of medicine, he is quoted as saying, "I'm not really a medical historian. I'm a social historian and an 18th century man". In addition to the history of medicine and other sciences, he specialised in the social history of eighteenth-century Britain and the Enlightenment. He also wrote and lectured on the history of London. With G. E. Berrios, Porter published A History of Clinical Psychiatry (1985) and co-edited the international journal History of Psychiatry (1989). He also edited the journal History of Science for many years.

In 2007 Roberta Bivins and John V. Pickstone edited Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter (Palgrave Macmillan). Several of the essays address Porter's work directly, and William F. Bynum appends a biographical sketch.

On the history of science

• The Making of Geology: Earth Science in Britain, 1660-1815 (Cambridge and New York, 1977; reprinted 1980) (ISBN 9780521215213)
• The Earth Sciences: An Annotated Bibliography (New York and London, 1983) (ISBN 9780824092672)
• Man Masters Nature: Twenty-Five Centuries of Science (1989) ISBN 9780807612330

On the history of medicine

• The History of Medicine: Past, Present and Future (Uppsala, 1983)
• A Social History of Madness: Stories of the Insane (London, 1987; 1989; 1996) (ISBN 9780297792239)
• Disease, Medicine, and Society in England, 1550-1860 (London, 1987; Basingstoke, 1993; Cambridge, 1995) (ISBN 9780333398654)
• Mind-Forg'd Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency (London, 1987; 1990) (ISBN 9780485113242)
• Edward Gibbon: Making History (London, 1988) (ISBN 9780297793373)
• Health for Sale: Quackery in England, 1660-1850 (Manchester and New York, 1989) (ISBN 9780719019036)
• Doctor of Society: Thomas Beddoes and the Sick Trade in Late Enlightenment England (London, 1991)
• The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (London, 1997; 1999) ISBN 9780393046342

• Nicholas Venette: Conjugal Love (1983) ISBN 9780862451073
• Anatomy of Madness (1985) ISBN 9780317193589
• Disease, Medicine, and Society in England, 1550-1860 (1995) ISBN 9780521552622
• The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (1996) ISBN 9780521442114

• A Social History of Madness: The World Through the Eyes of the Insane (1988) ISBN 9781555841850
• Bodies Politic: Disease, Death, and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900 (2001) ISBN 9780801439537
• Madness: A Brief History (2002) ISBN 9780192802668
• Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine (2003) ISBN 9780393037623
• Flesh in the Age of Reason (2004) ISBN 9780393050752
• The Cambridge History of Medicine (2006) ISBN 9780521864268
• Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Lunatics (2006) ISBN 9780752437309

On the Enlightenment

• The Enlightenment (Basingstoke, 1990; 2001)
• Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000) (ISBN 9780713991529)
  • Published in the USA as The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York, 2000) (ISBN 9780393048728)

On social history

• English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1982; Harmondsworth, 1990) (ISBN 9780140220995)
• London: A Social History (London, 1994; 1996; 2000) (ISBN 9780674538382)
• The Rise and Fall of London's Town Centres: Lessons for the Future (London, 1996) (ISBN 9781899626250)

History Today Articles

• "Under the influence": mesmerism in England (September 1985)
• The Rise and Fall of the Age of Miracles (November 1996)
• Bethlam/Bedlam: Methods of Madness? (October 1997)
• Reading is Bad for your Health (March 1998)
• Matrix of modernity - Roy Porter discusses how the British Enlightenment paved the way for the creation of the modern world (April 2001)
• The body politic: diseases and discourses - Roy Porter shows how 18th-century images of the medical profession flow over into the work of political caricaturists (October 2001)

Co-authored

• Rape, with Sylvana Tomaselli (1986) ISBN 9780393046342
• Patient's Progress: Doctors and Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England, with Dorothy Porter (1989) ISBN 9780804717441
• The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950, with Lesley A Hall (1995) ISBN 9780300062212
• Gout: The Patrician Malady, with G S Rousseau (1998) ISBN 9780300073867

As editor

• The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science, with G S Rousseau (1980) ISBN 9780521225991
• Dictionary of the History of Science, with W F Bynum and E J Browne (1981) ISBN 9780691082875
• The Enlightenment in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1981) ISBN 9780521237574
  • Contributed essay, 'The Enlightenment in England'
• The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry, 3 volumes, with W F Bynum and Michael Shepherd (1985) ISBN 9780422794305
  • Volume I: People and Ideas - contributed essay 'The Hunger of Imagination: approaching Samuel Johnson's melancholy'
• Revolution in History, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1986) ISBN 9780521259781
  • Contributed essay, 'The scientific revolution: a spoke in the wheel?'
• Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine, with Andrew Wear (1987) ISBN 9780709936879
• The Social History of Language, with Peter Burke (1987) ISBN 9780521301589
• Drugs and Narcotics in History, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1988) ISBN 9780521431637
• Romanticism in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1988) ISBN 9780521326056
• Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, with G S Rousseau (1988) ISBN 9780807817827
• The Dialectics of Friendship, with Sylvana Tomaselli (1989) ISBN 9780415017510
• The Hospital in History, with Lindsay Patricia Granshaw (1989) ISBN 9780415003759
• Exoticism in the Enlightenment, with G S Rousseau (1989) ISBN 9780719026775
• Fin de Siècle and its Legacy, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1990) ISBN 9780521341080
• The Popularization of Medicine, 1650-1850 (1992) ISBN 9780415072175
• The Renaissance in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1992) ISBN 9780521361811
• The Scientific Revolution in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1992) ISBN 9780521395106
• Consumption and the World of Goods, with John Brewer (1993) ISBN 9780415037129
• Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, with W F Bynum (1993) ISBN 9780415047715
• A Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century World History, with Jeremy Black (1994) ISBN 9780631180685
• The Biographical History of Scientists (1994) ISBN 9780195210835
• Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1994) ISBN 9780521444347
• Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, with Christopher Fox and Robert Wokler (1995) ISBN 9780520200104
• Languages and Jargons: Contributions Towards the Social History of Language, with Peter Burke (1995) ISBN 9780745612799
• Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century, with Marie Mulvey Roberts (1996) ISBN 9780814766446
• Nature and Society in Historical Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich and Bo Gustafsson (1997) ISBN 9780521495301
• From Physico-Theology to Bio-Technology: Essays in the Social and Cultural History of Biosciences, with Kurt Bayertz (1998)ISBN 978-9042005013
  • Also contributed essay 'Gout and quackery; or, banks and mountebanks'
• Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, with Ole Peter Grell (2000) ISBN 9780521651967
• The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800-1965, with David Wright (2003) ISBN 9780521802062
• Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations, with W F Bynum (2005) ISBN 9780198584094

Books about Roy Porter

• Remembering Roy Porter (2002, The Wellcome Trust)
• Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter (2007) ISBN 9780230525498