From: Canadian Journal of History | Date: August 1, 1999| Author: | COPYRIGHT 1999 Canadian Journal of History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain, by Alison Winter. Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 1998. xiv, 464 pp., $30.00

It is hard to imagine a modern equivalent of Victorian mesmerism and indeed the thrust of Alison Winter's important new book is that it would probably be impossible to do so. In Winter's account, mesmerism was one of the last major spectacles involving the putative manipulation of hidden forces in which virtually the entire public could participate (as actor, spectator, or critic) without there being a consensus that some group ...