Publisher Description

This biographical history follows the iconoclastic career of John R. Friedeberg Seeley, pre-eminent "Pop Sociologist" and Mental Health Activist of the 1950s. Seeley's "strange journey" began as a British Home Child, estranged from his cosmopolitan German-Jewish family. Seeley progressed through the ranks of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, and the University of Chicago, to achieve prominence as the author of Crestwood Heights, a defining work of postwar social science. He led an ambitious mental health project in Canadian schools, and was a founding father of York University. However, Seeley's struggle with mental illness and Jewish identity brought him into conflict with the Canadian establishment. His career ended in academic exile, but his dream of a mental health revolution still resonates.

Author Biography

Paul Roberts Bentley holds an MSc. (Econ) in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and an Ed. D. in the History and Philosophy of Education from the University of Toronto. He has worked as a History Teacher and Head of Department in Ontario High Schools for over 25 years.

Table of Contents

Prologue1. Wolff Child2. A Splendid Chap 3. An Opening Gun 4. Pop Sociology5.Empire6. How to Murder a Community7. Film Noir8. The Isle of Nuts 9. Waspish Tone10. Jewish Tempers11. The Flash12. Wild SurmisesEpilogue

Description for Sales People

This book is a historical discovery of both the career of an important public intellectual of the early postwar era, John R. Friedeberg Seeley; and of a major mental health program in schools during that era; that have gone largely unreported. This book reveals new details about collusion between the Eugenics and Mental Health Movements, especially in Canada. This book adds a new chapter to the History of antisemitism and its impact in Canada. This book reveals the importance of Seeley as a forerunner of the Anti-Psychiatry movement of the 60s and 70s.

Details