Works
Satan's Silence, a 1995 work which Nathan co-authored with Michael Snedeker, examined and "debunked" the wave of satanic ritual abuse allegations that took place beginning in the 1980s. Victor Navasky described the book as the "definitive study" of the subject, and a CounterPunch columnist credited the book as having "exposed and virtually stopped the so-called satanic cult child sex panic". Paul Okami's review of the book in The Journal of Sex Research noted that the book "is not . . . a scientific work", and he had some criticisms of its organization and what Okami saw as misapplication of certain social-science concepts and an overreliance in some parts of the book on feminist and leftist economic theory; nevertheless, Okami judged the book to be "essential reading . . . for its devastating journalistic portrait" and "for its more general analysis of proximate mechanisms by which our society can become vulnerable to patent collective madness."
Pornography, published in 2007, is written as a concise "guidebook" on the subject of pornography. A Canadian reviewer described the writing as "frank and cool", and made note of Nathan's assertion that no connection has been established between the use of pornography and criminal behavior, as well as her focus on the "connection between porn and shame" to define pornography.
Nathan's 2011 book, Sybil Exposed, takes on the case of the famous psychiatric patient known as "Sybil", whose supposed multiple personality disorder was the subject of a 1973 bestselling book and two motion pictures. Among other things, Nathan discovered that Sybil's psychiatrist was aware of (but apparently ignored) the fact that she suffered from pernicious anemia, the symptoms of which would include most of the patient's complaints. Nathan's book received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it a "startling exposé". Carol Tavris, reviewing the book for The Wall Street Journal, commented that "Nathan's indefatigable detective work in Sybil Exposed has produced a major contribution to the history of psychiatric fads and the social manufacture of mental disorders. This is the book that should be a made-for-TV movie."
Read more about this topic: Debbie Nathan
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.
“There is a great deal of self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that keeps the earth sweet; that saves on superfluities, and spends on essentials; that goes rusty, and educates the boy; that sells the horse, but builds the school; works early and late, takes two looms in the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)