Rafalovich makes a sociological examination of the ways in which ADHD 'troubles' the lives of children, drawing on interviews with doctors, teachers, and parents, to describe the multiple universes in which ADHD operates. The literature and historical review is sensitive and comprehensive, looking at the genealogy and scientific construction of the diagnosis without reducing it to a corruption fiction-a la the anti-psychiatric crusaders. Rafalovich finds a stark divided between neurological and psychoanalytic approaches towards understanding ADHD, and the ways that relevant individuals switch between the approaches in different contexts.

This book is also literally my dissertation, so I'm very sympathetic to the scope and breadth of the topic, and the need to make a dissertation 'doable' rather than complete. That said, I wish he had paid more attention to the rhetorical and symbolic worlds in which doctors and teachers operate: ADHD is not the only means by which students are labelled, it is merely a dominant code in the contemporary governmentality and biopolitics of ADHD and human efficiency. ADHD is a manifestation of something much bigger, implicitly wrapped up in the proper orderings of psychiatry and education as well as childhood.