Jan Walmsley is a historian of intellectual disability and Visiting Chair in History of Learning Disability at The Open University. In 1994 she founded the Social History of Learning Disability Research Group at The Open University.

Simon Jarrett is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a historian of intellectual disability and editor of Community Living magazine.

Introduction ~ Jan Walmsley, Simon Jarrett;

Paradoxical Lives: Intellectual Disability Policy and Practice in Twentieth Century Australia ~ Lee-Ann Monk;

Tracing the Historical and Ideological Roots of Services for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Austria ~ Gertraud Kremsner, Oliver Koenig and Tobias Buchner;

Time of Paradoxes: What the Twentieth Century was like for People with Intellectual Disabilities living in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic ~ Monika Muzáková and Iva Strnadová;

Intellectual Disability in Twentieth-Century Ghana ~ Jane Abraham and Auberon Jaleel Odoom;

A Greek Neverland: The History of the Leros Asylums' Inmates with Intellectual Disability (1958-95) ~ Danae Karydaki;

Intellectual Disability in Hong Kong: Then and Now ~ Phyllis King Shui Wong;

People with Intellectual Disabilities in the European Semi-Periphery: The Case of Hungary ~ Ágnes Turnpenny;

People with Intellectual Disabilities in Iceland in the Twentieth Century: Sterilization, Social Role Valorization and 'Normal Life' ~ Guðrún Stefánsdóttir;

Institutionalisation in Twentieth-Century New Zealand ~ Carol Hamilton;

'My Life in the Institution' and 'My Life in the Community': Policies and Practice in Taiwan ~ Yueh-Ching Chou;

Intellectual Disability Policy and Practice in Twentieth-Century United Kingdom ~ Simon Jarrett and Jan Walmsley;

From Social Menace to Unfulfilled Promise: The Evolution of Policy and Practice toward People with Intellectual Disabilities in the United States ~ Philip M. Ferguson.