Monday’s Featured Non-Fiction: The Sleep of Others and the Transformations of Sleep Research

The Sleep of Others and the Transformations of Sleep Research
by Kenton Kroker
University of Toronto Press, 2007
496 pages

Examining a vast historical period of 2500 years, Kenton Kroker separates the problems associated with the history of dreaming from those associated with sleep itself and charts sleep-related diseases such as narcolepsy, insomnia, and sleep apnea. He describes the discovery of rapid eye movement – REM – during the 1950s, and shows how this discovery initiated the creation of ‘dream laboratories’ that later emerged as centres for sleep research during the 1960s and 1970s. Kroker’s work is unique in subject and scope and will be enormously useful for both sleep researchers, medical historians, and anybody who’s ever lost a night’s sleep.

Kenton Kroker is an assistant professor in the Science and Technology Studies Program at York University, Toronto.