The History of Issues

Mental Health
Author Adriane Ruggiero
Published by Greenhaven Press

Throughout history people have engaged in heated debates over controversial issues. Each volume in The History of Issues series looks at a particular issue and shows how the arguments have both changed and remained constant over time, proving the old adage that the "more things change the more they stay the same." Readers will be fascinated by the way moral questions remain fundamentally consistent even as scientific and technological advances alter the debate. For example, the moral arguments for and against animal rights have always pitted animals' innate right to survive against scientists' need to use animals in research to benefit humans--this equation was the same in the eighteenth century as it is in the twenty-first. Each anthology in the series contains a wide range of primary documents--including speeches, court cases, personal reflections, and newspaper accounts--that present controversies from previous eras and the present. Essays by historians and modern scholars add background and insight. The History of Issues series offers a historical perspective on issues that continue to spark controversy.