Examining a vast historical period of 2500 years, 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.

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

‘Anyone wanting to understand the development of the science and medicine of sleep will need to read Kenton Kroker’s The Sleep of Others ... An exemplary case study of the development of a new field of medicine, and one that should be of broad interest in the history of medicine.’

Tiago Moreira:
‘It is a testament to the quality of this book that it can spark such fundamental issues for the history of science/medicine while providing the first authoritative account of the history of human understanding of sleep.’

Simon J. Williams:
‘A magisterial study which exposes once again the myth that sleep is ever solely or simply a ‘private’ matter or a non-event.’

Mark W. Mahowald:
‘This book should be of intense interest to those who are interested in gaining insight and reflecting on how our individual specialty fields have evolved.’

Ian Hacking, Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts, College de France :
‘Kenton Kroker offers a deep analysis of how measuring devices, crude electrodes placed on the head, and a new institution, the sleep laboratory, completely changed what had been the most private, solitary, and perhaps non-existent time in our lives – when we are asleep.’

Jim Horne:
‘Unique and enlightening … Kroker shows how sleep has moved from the domain of religion to dogma to being the subject of scientific study.’