Book recommendation: Disability: The Basics

Disability: The Basics is an engaging and accessible introduction for laypeople, professionals and students alike. The aim of the book is to give readers an understanding of what people with disabilities experience and to illuminate the persistent deficiencies and barriers in the way their surroundings encounter and relate to impairments. It explores the broad historical, social, economic, environmental and legal conditions which affect what one experiences when living with a disability or illness in modern society.

In the book, Tom Shakespeare illuminates the day-to-day realities and gets around topics such as the diversity of experiences with disabilities, disability rights and the struggle for them plus health, education and work. He also reviews how people with disabilities have been treated throughout history and in different parts of the world. The words we use to refer to people, such as “disabled people”, both reflect and influence how we think about them. And the first chapter of the book just touches on the debate over terminology and language usage.

A debate that is about seeing people as people first rather than focusing on their health, limitations or challenges. In the introductory chapter, the author also touches on the danger of generalizing, because there are many kinds of disabilities and impairments, and they affect people's lives and experiences very differently. Furthermore, he gets at the point that disability is not something that pertains only to a specific group or minority, but is in fact a common human condition because most of us experience it in some form and degree over the course of our lives. After each chapter there is a literature list with suggestions for further reading, and at the back of the book you will find a subject and author register plus a list of word explanations.

About the Author Tom Shakespeare

Tom Shakespeare is a sociologist and professor of disability research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where he teaches, among other things, disability rights and in disability and mental health. He has previously taught and researched at the University of East Anglia and the Universities of Sunderland, Leeds and Newcastle. Tom Shakespeare has been engaged in the disability rights movement since 1986.

Facts about the book

Title: Disability: The BasicsAuthor: Shakespeare, T.Publication year: 2018

Publisher: Routledge

Number of pages: 163 pages plus appendix, glossary and index

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