Beautiful Lives
How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong: The startling and rarely told history of learning disabilities
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Beautiful Lives
Narrated by:
Stephen Unwin
Buy Now for $26.99
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Unwin
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By:
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Stephen Unwin
About this listen
'Thank you, Joey, for getting your dad off his arse to write this book.' HUGH BONNEVILLE
'A beautiful book - powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving.' GYLES BRANDRETH
'This is a wonderful and important book. Beautifully written, of course; but full of pain and joy, concern and celebration.' SIMON RUSSELL BEALE
'A powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account of the most marginalised and belittled out-group in modern society.' SIMON JARRETT, author of Those They Called Idiots
For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest - often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, learning-disabled people are still treated as fundamentally different.
Beautiful Lives is a personal and pragmatic account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, this powerful book uncovers a startling and rarely told history - one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.
Unwin shapes this history into a powerful story of love, lived experience and the long struggle for a better future.©2025 Stephen Unwin
Critic Reviews
A beautiful book - powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving. (Gyles Brandreth, Broadcaster and former Member of Parliament)
Unwin's marvellous, elegant, moving book is a major contribution to both the history and understanding of this thing we call learning disability . . . it is a powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account of the most marginalised and belittled group in modern society. (Simon Jarrett, author of THOSE THEY CALLED IDIOTS)
This book is both heartrending and gorgeous. It crosses the line many times but ultimately it's about love. He teaches us humanity. (Miriam Margolyes, actor)
This is a superbly written, even entertaining treatment of a sombre topic - how people with learning disabilities are marginalised and ignored. I could not recommend it more highly. (Jan Walmsley, Visiting Chair of Learning Disability History, Open University)
A profoundly affecting book that also provides a manifesto for the future. No reader will be left unchallenged by this incredible and important book. No reader will be left untouched. (Lucy Easthope, author of WHEN THE DUST SETTLES)
With an astonishing breadth of research and a profoundly personal narrative, Stephen Unwin's book on society's treatment of those living with learning disabilities is revealing, wise, angry and hopeful. Thank you, Joey, for getting your dad off his arse to write this book. (Hugh Bonneville, actor)
This is a must-read for anyone wanting to develop a deeper, more humanistic understanding of this area. (Professor Sara Ryan, author of JUSTICE FOR LAUGHING BOY)
This is a wonderful and important book. Beautifully written, of course; but full of pain and joy, concern and celebration. (Simon Russell Beale, actor)
Beautiful Lives is a book that should be compulsory reading for every politician and every GP. His life and career are about words, but Joey has taught Stephen that there are so many other ways in which to communicate - that a touch, or a look can make words redundant. I hope that Joey's voice, amplified by his father, will be heard and understood. A beautiful life indeed. (Baroness Rosa Monckton, campaigner)
Erudite, wise, and beautifully written; but above all, a labour of love. (Dominic Lawson, journalist)
It's the kind of book I dreamt of having when my son's learning disability and possible autism were mooted when he was just two years old. Beautiful Lives is both scholarly, and personal, erudite and profound, historical and bang up to date. It is not sentimental, rather it's realistic and hopeful in equal measure. Readers will feel safe to explore changing attitudes over time without feeling judged and to re-examine their own attitudes. (Baroness Sheila Hollins, psychiatrist and campaigner)
To listen in the authors own voice feels to be bought in a little closer to Stephen and Joey. “Cheese”
A humble review
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