Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong: The startling and rarely told history of learning disabilities 'Both heartrending and gorgeous' MIRIAM MARGOLYES - Softcover

Unwin, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1035424746 ISBN 13: 9781035424740

Publisher: Wildfire, 2026

Synopsis

'Both heart-rending and gorgeous. He teaches us humanity' MIRIAM MARGOLYES

'Thank you, Joey, for getting your dad off his arse to write this book' HUGH BONNEVILLE

'A beautiful book - powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving' GYLES BRANDRETH

'Full of pain and joy, concern and celebration' SIMON RUSSELL BEALE

'A powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account' SIMON JARRETT

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For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest - often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, learning-disabled people are still treated as fundamentally different.

Beautiful Lives is a personal and pragmatic account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, this powerful book uncovers a startling and rarely told history - one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.

Unwin shapes this history into a powerful story of love, lived experience and the long struggle for a better future.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Unwin is one of Britain's leading theatre and opera directors. He founded English Touring Theatre in 1993 and opened the Rose Theatre Kingston in 2008, which he ran until 2014. He is the author of ten books, including guides to Shakespeare, Brecht, Ibsen and twentieth-century drama for Faber, Nick Hern Books and Bloomsbury. In 2022, Reaktion Books published Poor Naked Wretches, an original and much praised study of Shakespeare's working people.

Stephen's second son Joey has severe learning disabilities and Stephen is a campaigner for the rights and opportunities of people like him. His stage plays include All Our Children (London, 2017; New York 2019) and Laughing Boy (London, 2024), both of which concern the historic abuse of disabled children and young people. He writes a regular column for Byline Times, mostly on disability, as well as a popular blog on his website.

www.stephenunwin.uk

Edition details

• Publisher: Wildfire
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1035424746
• ISBN 13: 9781035424740
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320