Neurotribes

Is autism a lifelong disability, or a natural form of cognitive difference, one that sometimes sits close to genius? Steve Silberman, a reporter for Wired, argues that it is both of these things and more, and that how well society grasps this will shape its future. NeuroTribes challenges the usual assumptions about autism and makes the case for a wider model of acceptance and participation, one in which people who think differently can take a full place in public life.

The book digs into a hidden history of autism, one that Silberman says was buried by the very clinicians who became famous for identifying the condition. He follows the story back to its earliest research and to two pioneers, Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, who set the boundaries of autism in strikingly different ways. Their rival visions help explain how autism came to be understood, and misunderstood, over the following decades.

Silberman also takes on a question that troubles many families: why diagnoses have climbed so steeply in recent years. His answers are surprising, and they lead into the idea of neurodiversity. On this view, differences such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD are neither mistakes of nature nor the product of a toxic modern world. They come from natural variation in the human genome.

The result is a narrative of discovery that rethinks the history, meaning, and consequences of neurological difference. The book won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the California Book Award.