Book Review Title: The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece Author: Martha L. Rose Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 2003 Cloth, ISBN: 0-472-11339-9 Cost: $42.50 USD Reviewer: Mark Sherry Martha Rose analyzes a wide range of Ancient Greek material in The Staff of Oedipus, focusing on Òphysical disabilityÓ (but excluding dwarfism and epilepsy). In the first chapter, ÒThe Landscape of DisabilityÓ, Rose stresses that although there were terms for specific impairments (such as blindness or deafness), there was no Greek equivalent for the modern overarching term ÒdisabilityÓ. People with physical disabilities were not routinely segregated, excluded or marginalized from the community. Chapter Two, ÒKilling Defective BabiesÓ, challenges the idea that disabled children were regarded as abhorrent and were routinely left to die in Ancient Greece. Rose suggests that there is scant information about such ÒexposureÓ of any baby Ð disabled or not Ð in Ancient Greece, and that Òsweeping conclusionsÓ are unwarranted in the light of this Òscant evidenceÓ (p.81). Chapter Three, ÒDemosthenesÕ StutterÓ, discusses speech impairments (including stuttering, communication impairments associated with developmental disabilities and age-related speech impairments). Rose admits that Òwe have no direct testimony from anyone with a speech disorderÓ but nevertheless suggests that each case of speech impairment was separately negotiated by the individual and the community. Chapter Four, ÒCroesussÕ Other Son: Deafness in a Culture of CommunicationÓ suggests that deafness was not seen as a sensory impairment, but instead an impairment of reasoning and intelligence. The chapter begins with an etiology of deafness, then speculates on the differences in the social experiences of people with mild, severe and pre-lingual hearing loss. In ÒDegrees of Sight and BlindnessÓ, Chapter Five, Rose argues that the Greek notions of blindness were very different from contemporary understandings. ÒOne saw, even if only a little, or one did not see. Either condition could be reversed in an instant. No one in the Greek world was immune from blindnessÓ (p.92). A brief conclusion highlights three themes: the notion of Òphysical disabilityÓ was foreign to Ancient Greece; physically disabled people were banned from very few social roles, and communities integrated physically disabled people into a wide range of social, economic and military roles. My main criticism of this book is that Rose occasionally seems to have engaged in precisely the behavior which she often critiques: imposing modern perspectives on the material she analyzes. The most obvious example of this practice is the way she divides experiences of disability into (modern?) diagnostic categories, such as Òspeech impairmentÓ. But she also blends historical material with ill-fitting contemporary material, such as a contemporary American narrative about the intersection of race and disability, and a modern advertisement from the Stuttering Foundation of America. Nevertheless, the book does illuminate an unexplored area (disability in Ancient Greece) and it will particularly appeal to those interested in disability within historical and cross-cultural contexts.