Historian John Foot discusses the movement in 1960s Italy to reform and eventually abolish the psychiatric asylum system. Specifically, he’ll be focusing on the work of Franco Basaglia, whose antifascist politics drove him to radically alter the way in which mental health treatment is managed in Italy. 

John Foot is a historian and author based at the University of Bristol. He is the author of numerous books on Italian history and most relevant to the discussion today he is the author of The Man who Closed the Asylums, published by Verso books in 2015 and recently co-edited Basaglia's International Legacy: From Asylum to Community with Tom Burns. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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