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The birth of the public museum
The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.
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The building as tool of healing
When we’re ill, it’s not just medical care that helps to treat us. Architects have discovered that the right environment can play an important part too.
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Silent threat
As Vanessa Peterson recovered from a frighteningly serious illness, she wondered whether it was linked to air quality. For many communities, she found, pollution is a political issue.
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Do good mothers make good democracy?
To be psychologically fit for democracy, one distinguished paediatrician argued that you need a ‘good enough mother’ – and that we must acknowledge the bad side of our feelings.
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Does mass media pave the way to fascism?
In the aftermath of World War II, psychoanalysts found the psychological roots of authoritarianism closer to home than was comfortable.
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Can isolation lead to manipulation?
Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.
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Louis Wain’s cryptic cats
Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.
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Can our sexual desires be transformed?
In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.