Autism is the first book to analyze the condition through the ways in which it is expressed in medical, historical and cultural narratives. The book aims to present a rounded portrayal of the ways that autism is currently represented in the world.

Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film and Director of Medical Humanities research in the School of English at the University of Leeds in the UK. He is the author of Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Liverpool UP, 2008) and a number of articles on disability representation.

Preface. Part One: The Facts. 1. What we Know... Or Don't. 2. The body, the brain and the person: biology, neurology and self. 3. The detail of diagnosis. 4. Intervention and treatment: metaphors, objects and subjects. 5. The gender question and the nature of being. 6. Conclusion: after the fact. Part Two: Social, Cultural and Political Histories. 1. Autism before modern medicine. 2. The development of child psychiatry: Kanner and Asperger. 3. Psychoanalysis, Bruno Bettelheim, parents and blame. 4. Organization and Associations. 5. The rise of neurodiversity: demands, advocacy and legislation. 6. Cultural representations: outsider and insider accounts. 7. Conclusion: history in the making. Part Three: Major Controversies. 1. A lack of consensus. 2. Causing Autism. 3. Autism and the idea of the cure. 4. Conclusion: Autism and the human - again. Afterword: Autistic Presence.