Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum by Owen Davies Oxford University Press, 368 pages, £25
In the 19th century, society was changing at breakneck speed: industrialisation, new technologies, the railway, scientific revolution, new religions and the birth of psychiatry. In Troubled by Faith, social historian Owen Davies explores ideas about the supernatural against this backdrop of innovation and upheaval. He does this through the lens of medical history, drawing on medical literature and – most compellingly – the experiences of patients recorded in asylum records.