Depression and Globalization: The Politics of Mental Health in the 21st Century

Depression and Globalisation is an important academic text on the political aspects of depression, specifically the relationship between globalisation and depression. In this text Dr. Walker reestablishes the link between mental health research and treatment, along with the political and economical influences outside the world of academic and clinical mental health. Overall, this book will accomplish the task of how closely and inextricably linked these diverse fields are and the way they operate together to produce not only a cultural representation of mental illness but influence the extent and type of mental distress in the 21st century.

"This book is a personal treatise of depression and its relation to political and social events, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States since the late 1970s and early 1980s. … This book might appeal to those interested in the history of mental illness (mainly depression) and its relation to global events, including sociopolitical changes occurring constantly throughout the world." (Steven T. Herron, Doody’s Review Service, April, 2008)

"According to Walker … the neo-liberal economic policies that emerged in the 1980s and dominate the global market today have had a profound effect on the increase of depressive disorders in the US and the UK. In this volume intended for both general and academic readers, he discusses social and mental health trends, linking factors of globalization to a variety of disorders, also confronting its effects on how psychological science understands and treats them." (www.booknews.com, April, 2008)

"One measure of a book is its effect on the reader's outlook. Although Depression and Globalization obliquely addresses clinical depression, I found while reading it that I began to listen to depressed patients differently. I felt newly attuned to the alienating effects of consumerist society on their lives, on its disruption of their family and social lives." (John C. Markowitz, MD, JAMA, November 5, 2008-Vol. 300, NO. 17)