English has written a terrific book, taut and thematic where it could so easily have been slack and baggy. Finding a focus cannot have been easy ... And Hitler is so huge a figure that a less assured writer would have had trouble cutting him down to size and keeping him in play. But English manages all this deftly; the result is a book as beautiful as it is bleak.
The Gallery of Miracles & Madness is a superbly told story of worlds colliding ... There’s so much that’s wonderful about this book; it’s hard to know where to start heaping praise. It is by turns intriguing, tragic, horrifying and occasionally funny. I was sad when I finished it, a feeling I usually only get from novels ... [English] writes in a carefully controlled and phlegmatic fashion, allowing outrage to emerge from the events themselves, rather than from the manner of their telling ... Hitler is Hitler; there’s not much new that can be said, yet English somehow does .
This is not an abstract book of ideas ... The Gallery of Miracles and Madness is profoundly heartbreaking, unexpectedly redeeming and immensely important.
[A] penetrating chronicle ... Mr. English traces [Hitler's] trajectory in fascinating, grueling detail ... At times, Mr. English can be repetitive, but he deftly links art history, psychiatry and Hitler’s ideology to devastating effect. Because seeing art through Hitler’s eyes, as Mr. English compels us to do, is nothing less than soul-crushing, I often needed to pause for air.
[A] deeply thorough account ... The second and third sections...are a masterclass in biography ... The final fourth section, 'Euthanasie', is an exhausting, devastating read ... Despite occasional gaps in focus – which, admittedly, is most likely informed by the scarcity of surviving records of psychiatric patients at that time – English does a marvelous job of creating a readable, emotional text, elevating fact to narrative – spinning gold out of hundreds of fractured sources. With his capable hand, history comes alive.
English’s book tells two stories: One of humanity where mentally ill people were given a voice, and one of inhumanity, where Nazism strove to destroy creativity and human life. The end notes are fascinating for any history lover who wants to better understand Hitler’s maniacal grip on Germany.
A powerful and disturbing portrait of a devastating chapter in the history of Nazi terror ... Many of the artists [psychiatrist Hans] Prinzhorn discovered—men Hitler damned as 'degenerates and lunatics'—became victims in the euthanasia program, which the author trenchantly brings to life ... A revelatory look at the 'gangplank for the Holocaust'.
[A] fascinating account ... In musing on the definition of art, limitations of clinical psychology, and the rise of fascism, English’s story feels strikingly relevant. While shedding new light on this piece of history, English also provides a cautionary tale for the future.
