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Martha L Rose, The staff of Oedipus: transforming disability in ancient Greece, Corporealities: Discourses of Disability, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003, pp. xiii, 154, illus., £26.00, US$42.50 (paperback 0-472-11339).
Martha Rose presents a well-researched study of physical disability in ancient Greece. Not only does the book further our awareness of issues related to the body and its care, but it also helps to dispel misunderstood perceptions of disability in the past. It is often assumed the Greeks had strict definitions of disability that were used to separate people into distinct groups. This misconception is used today to validate attitudes and understandings towards those classified as disabled, and it is this naïve application of medical history to modern disability studies that is the main issue of Rose's book. The principal argument against making direct analogies between the two periods is that disability is a cultural construct determined by the inherent beliefs of a particular society. On the basis of cultural and temporal variation, Rose confidently asserts that modern conceptions of ancient disability...