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Disability

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What to expect

A groundbreaking history of modern Britain that puts the experiences of disabled people to the fore for the first time.

Despite there being more than 16 million disabled people in the UK today, disability rarely features in mainstream accounts of our past. That absence is not down to lack of evidence: it is a forgotten, suppressed history – the result of deliberate choices about whose histories matter. This remarkable book rectifies this.

Disability is a story of resistance and ingenuity, full of people who refused to be silenced or pitied. We meet the labourer who fights accusations in court that he’s faking his disability, and wins; the painter who signs her royalty miniatures ‘without hands’; and the one-armed textile worker who turned his injury into reform. We see how disabled people have rallied together to demand equality – fighting for their right to lead ordinary lives like everybody else.

This is a story not of progress led by doctors or philanthropists, but an extraordinary ground-up history of ordinary people demanding dignity and justice. By putting disabled people back into our national story, David Turner reveals a fuller and richer history of modern Britain than ever before.

'A timely and enjoyable untold history' PHILIPPA GREGORY, author of Normal Women

'A rare feat of a book: so many extraordinary stories, so many lost names, brought to light' RAYMOND ANTROBUS, author of The Perseverance

© David Turner 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

Splendid ... Turner's detailed study explores the objectification and stigmatisation in the UK's past and instead celebrates a history of activism that helped the disables rights movement grow over centuries ... There are so many interesting threads to a story I suspect few of us know much about ... [A] well-researched and engrossing book
Independent, Book of the Month
The sweeping narrative is anchored by incredible personal stories … In showing how disabled people throughout history have rejected the narratives foisted upon them, Turner in turn rejects another false narrative: that disabled people are passive recipients of both discrimination and help. This book tells another, truer story: that we have always resisted and always fought to make things better
Guardian
A timely and enjoyable untold history, filled with resilience, courage and even humour
Philippa Gregory, author of Normal Women
A rare feat of a book: so many extraordinary stories, so many lost names, brought to light, re-evaluated and revised through a caring and knowledgeable disability lens. A nuanced, intersectional and textured human history, David Turner has done us all a great service with Disability
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance
A fascinating, detailed and brilliant book, from which I have learned so much. Exactly what we all need
Tom Shakespeare, Professor of Disability Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
A lively, sensitive history of disability and ableism, from the workhouses of the 'age of faith' through to our age of austerity. With moving vignettes and powerful storytelling, Turner sets out the struggle of disabled people for dignity, humanity and respect, and demonstrates with eloquence just how far we have to go to build a society that puts people before profit
Gavin Francis, author of Recovery
A profound chronicle of the lives of British disabled people throughout history, this book is a necessary reminder of the extraordinary abilities and resourcefulness of those who are too often still pushed to the margins. Gripping, profound and important
Gabriel Weston, author of Alive
A rich, immersive and well-rounded narrative on the extraordinary battles undertaken for the right to an ordinary life. Disability is a bold declaration that disabled people have always been here, in all sections of society. Truly fantastic
Grace Spence Green, author of To Exist As I Am
A ground-breaking book that uncovers the hidden histories of disabled people who fought against injustice
Disability News Service
A ground-breaking addition to British disability history, placing the experiences of disabled people to the fore
Bookseller
Author David Turner
Narrator David Turner
Duration 12 hours and 25 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529941234
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Disability: social aspects, History: specific events and topics, Social discrimination and equal treatment
Availability AU, GB, IE

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