- Home
- ACADEMIC
- History
- Cultural History
- Life Unseen
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
Description
Imagine a world without sight. Is it dark and gloomy? Is it terrifying and isolating? Or is it simply a state of not seeing, which we have demonised and sentimentalized over the centuries? And why is blindness so frightening?
In this fascinating historical adventure, Broadcaster and author Selina Mills takes us on a journey through the history of blindness in Western Culture to discover that blindness is not so dark after all.
Inspired by her own experience of losing her sight as she forged a successful journalistic career, Life Unseen takes us through a personal and unsentimental historical quest through the lives, stories and achievements of blind people - as well as those sighted people who sought to patronize, demonize and fix them. From the blind poet Homer, through the myths and moralising of early medieval culture to the scientific and medical discoveries of the Enlightenment and modern times, the story of blindness turns out to be a story of our whole culture.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Imagining It - Nandy and Mythic Heroes
Chapter 2: Living With It – Dark Versus Light
Chapter 3: Faking It – False Eyes, False Devils
Chapter 4: Fixing It – The Lure of the Cure
Chapter 5: Learning It – Educating "The Blind"
Chapter 6: Reading It – Pure Fiction
Chapter Seven: Inventing it – Who Decides What You See?
Conclusion: What is Blindness Anyway?
Index
Product details

Published | 15 Jun 2023 |
---|---|
Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 288 |
ISBN | 9781350349735 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
-
Written with wit, warmth and razor-sharp insight, this book should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in blindness, history, society, culture and beyond.
Anna Bonet, Non-fiction book of the month, The i
-
Informative, heartfelt … This admirable book dispels myths around the condition.
Martin Chilton, The Independent
-
Spirited, irreverent … Life Unseen offers an illuminating peek into one woman's world, and asks searching questions of us all in terms of the different ways in which we perceive our world. There are no glib answers because blindness, as Life Unseen demonstrates, is a subject riven with ambiguity and complexity. In this important and hugely enjoyable book, Mills clears away some of the myths and injustices that surround it.
Susan Flockhart, The Herald
-
It's an extraordinary account of blindness, the mythology that surrounds it, the fallacies and taboos connected to it, and the attitudes towards it throughout the ages. Written by an author who is herself blind, it's filled with fascinating information, practical insights and teaching moments about the nature of imagination, language and perception of our world.
Joanne Harris, The Guardian
-
Selina Mills's defiant book is a thundering challenge to our sighted notions of blindness, a resounding battle cry for a revolution in our age-old perceptions of being blind that should be read by sighted people everywhere.
Wendy Moore, Times Literary Supplement
-
A beautiful, tender and inspiring book about seeing the world in a different way.
Peter Frankopan

ONLINE RESOURCES
Bloomsbury Collections
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.