This is not a text for the faint of heart, in several respects. First, this is pure academese. Saltationism, teleogical, ontogeny and phylogeny, unregenerate, homologies, epigenesis, architectonic ... can you follow? Because the list goes on. If you're a historian or a philosopher of science or some sort of pure, traditional scientist, I'm sure you'll have a better time than the rest of us with this language. A certain readership and level of acquaintance with the material is assumed. I'm not criticizing Mangham's writing; it's excellent, in fact. For example, "vital excess"! What great wordcrafting! But the rest is obtuse. Second, on that note, is the sheer amount of bulky quotations. Block quotes, direct quotes in-text of all lengths and states ... how much of this is Mangham's writing and how much of it is the writing of others is a worthy question. Third, the rather vague topic at the heart of it all. I think this was a deep reading of a certain slice of mostly white, Western, privileged, male academics within a few hundred years' span of the last century. Why? Beats me. I gather that this group of people influenced and/or represent a certain framing of "the monstrous" that may be considered hegemonic. I think? The thesis is unclear to me. Finally, the topic: monsters and monstrosity. Mangham requests a sympathetic reader at the start. Monstrosity is framed as a "shorthand for a broad, varied, and complex range of discussions undertaken on the subject of congenital structural deformity." He argues that he's taken a historical, critical disability perspective on the term (no reference for this, however), claiming his use of "monster" is equivalent to how critical scholars use "disability" in a fully interrogated and "objective" (his word) way. He claims to distinguish between this take and the modern "pejorative" version of monster, using quotes throughout to indicate this. Frankly, I didn't notice this use of quotes, although I recognize that he was both bland and critical of how his subjects constructed the idea of "monstrosity." Nevertheless, I find myself asking "why"? Why are we spending time on how things once were? The reason escapes me.

DNF and yet 4 stars. Why?
For some reason, I came to believe this is about microorganisms that have a huge and yet mostly unknown impact on our human bodies. Many scientists believe that they can even significantly influence our behavior. So this is what I was expecting, honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking.

In this book, we have an incredibly detailed work based on enormous research on monsters and monstrosities. What do these words mean, and where they came from? who, when, and how used them, and in what context? Was it always a negative term? The science of medicine evolved significantly in the XVIIIth century only to explode soon after and continues to this day. Doctors, scientists, anatomists, and many others were fascinated by the human body and wanted to know all about it. Everything that was abnormal sparked even more interest. The ethics in using language was nothing back then like it is now, so anything different than normal was simply monstrous, the term was used not in an offensive and mean way, but simply because they had no other words.
Monsters were also popular in literature, especially in gothic.
So all this the author explains in tiny details, there are so many quotations, and so many other authors and their works mentioned that it makes me feel tired. I have some knowledge of the history of biology, medicine, and literature so I thought I should really enjoy this. Sadly it turned out that I know way too little about Mary Shelley´s "Frankenstein" or about Darwins' works or Dickens´s works. For me, it´s just overwhelming. Too much for my little head.
Yet I rate this book at 4 stars out of respect for the authors' knowledge and his work and because I am sure that this book will find many happy readers, but among more sophisticated circles.