Unbound : Notes from a Reluctant Disability Activist

This insightful and often witty collection of essays charts the making of a reluctant disability activist-including his commentary for NPR, the New York Times and elsewhere. Ben Mattlin was born in 1962 with spinal muscular atrophy, a congenital and progressive neuromuscular weakness.He never stood or walked but grew up expecting a normal life.In this book of essays, he chronicles that life and also charts his growth as a reluctant disability activist and public intellectual. Mattlin’s disability was from birth. Raised in a family that insisted that he be educated in a mainstream setting, he never thought about his disability as being an obstacle until adulthood.It was not until he had graduated from Harvard and could not find a job that he began to understand what disability rights activists were talking about. These collected short pieces chronicle Mattlin’s intellectual coming-of-age including his beginnings, difficult conversations about disability, the social aspects of being disa