The Book of Phobias and Manias

A History of the World in 99 Obsessions

New Hardback Illustrated

Postscript summary

Naming psychological fixations began in the late 1780s and a flurry of terms soon emerged to define ‘imaginary evil or an undue fear of a real one’, then prejudices (xenophobia) or fashions (tulipomania). From ablutophobia (a fear of washing), via laughing mania to zoophobia (a general fear of animals), Kate Summerscale describes 99 such obsessions, their prevalence and wider context.

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