中文简介：

在19世纪之前，“正常”这个词很少与人类行为联系在一起。“正常”是一个数学术语：人并不正常，三角形才正常。

但从19世纪30年代开始，这一科学分支真正在欧洲和北美兴起，智商测试、性研究、幻觉普查，甚至还有英国的美丽地图（结论是阿伯丁的女性“最令人厌恶”）都大量涌现。本书讲述了令人惊讶的历史，“正常”的概念是如何产生的，它是如何在塑造人类的同时巩固了压抑的价值观。

Sarah Chaney关注为什么我们仍然在网上问：我的身体正常吗？我的性生活正常吗？我的孩子正常吗？在这个过程中，她向我们提出了挑战，为什么我们曾经认为“正常”可能是一件令人向往的事情。

英文简介：

Before the nineteenth century, the term normal was rarely ever associated with human behaviour. Normal was a term used in maths: people weren't normal - triangles were.

But from the 1830s, this branch of science really took off across Europe and North America, with a proliferation of IQ tests, sex studies, a census of hallucinations - even a UK beauty map (which concluded the women in Aberdeen were "the most repellent"). This book tells the surprising history how the very notion of the normal came about, how it shaped us all, often while entrenching oppressive values.

Sarah Chaney looks at why we're still asking the internet: Do I have a normal body? Is my sex life normal? Are my kids normal? And along the way, she challenges why we ever thought it might be a desirable thing to be.