Examines the cultural and political issues surrounding the problem of America's homeless mentally ill Isaac and Armat, a sociologist and a journalist, respectively, look retrospectively at the causes behind the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 1970s--a phenomena they abhor. Their solution to this monstrous error is to combine community services with active psychiatric treatment. Chapters expose how the "madness myth" started with anti-psychiatry proponents R.D. Laing and Thomas Szasz, ex-patient groups, and radical psychiatrists like Jeffrey Masson. The authors also lambast lawyers who eliminated involuntary commitment and sued hospitals and doctors for failure to treat. But perhaps the most riveting portion of this well-researched, disturbing, and lucid expository is the devastation wreaked on families by untreated relatives afflicted with mental illness. A good companion to Ann Braden Johnson's Out of Bedlam ( LJ 9/1/90). Recommended for larger collections. - Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., Phoenix Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.