Volume 33, Number 5 · March 27, 1986
Mysteries of the Deaf
By Oliver Sacks
When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf
by Harlan Lane
Random House, 537 pp., $24.95
The Deaf Experience: Classics in Language and Education
edited by Harlan Lane, translated by Franklin Philip
Harvard University Press, 221 pp., $20.00
Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard
by Nora Ellen Groce
Harvard University Press, 169 pp., $17.50
We are remarkably ignorant about deafness, which Dr. Johnson called 'the most desperate of human calamities'—much more ignorant than an educated man would have been in 1886, or 1786. Ignorant and indifferent. During the last few months I have raised the subject with countless people and nearly always met with responses like: 'Deafness? Don't know any deaf people. Never thought much about it. There's nothing interesting about deafness, is there?' This would have been my own response a few months ago.
Review, 8699 words
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