Rotman gives due warning in his Prologue that he has a much broader agenda in this book than its title might at first sight suggest to the unwary reader. He is, he says, developing a unique methodology that lies somewhere between the fields of history, religious studies, and psychology to analyze the ambiguous holy figures who are situated at the unclear borderlines of normality/sanity and abnormality/insanity.

Youval Rotman. Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium: The Ambiguity of Religious Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.

From Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, volume 14, number 2 (2017): pp. 329–333. Review by Richard Greenfield, Queen’s University