the refuge of books

I think one of the most striking parts to me were the direct repetitions of sets of lines - I was familiar with epithets and enjoyed spotting those, but the repetition of a message exactly during a scene in which a character is asked to deliver a message and then does so was interesting to me. Same with the phrasing of family histories. While I didn’t always do it, I enjoyed consulting the translation notes for different lines in the text.

I’m not well-versed in what to expect from a historical overview kind of book, tbh. This book was accessible to me in spite of that. I felt like I have takeaways from reading this, I was motivated to continue based on the writing style and subject matter, and I didn’t feel overwhelmed in the sense of losing sight of the big picture in favor of too many specific facts. The balance between overarching statements and anecdotes was well done, in my opinion.

Among many topics and themes, this book considers intersectionality as it relates to disability and addresses who defines disability/based on what (e.g., ability to engage in labor), activism, divisions and unity among people with different kinds of disabilities, and allies of disabled activists such as labor unions. I definitely learned new things about indigenous views on disability, immigration policies as related to disability, and activism prior to and leading up to key legislation in the US (section 504, IDEA, ADA). It does essentially conclude in 1990, and it’s interesting to think about what an update would look like and how a disability history of the past 30 years in the US would be described.