Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

It seems, from the reviews in this thread, to be a book for Student Research. 

I read it and found it fascinating and illuminating as a history of psychiatry and how we got where we are.  It's a kind of three-way comparison of ideas of autism between Kanner, Asperger and autistic people themselves.  It's nothing like a self-help book, but rather I found it useful in explaining why psychiatrists think what they do about autistic people.

Certain sections of the edition I read seemed to partially excuse Hans Asperger, since Silberman didn't have all the historical evidence that came to light in the last couple of years that Asperger collaborated and sent many autistic children to their deaths.

All the same Silberman is a good journalist and a good autistic ally and the book provided me with a primer that could be used as a starting point for investigating or thinking through more accurate views of autism (eg monotropism).

I don't imagine that the goal is to remove Asperger from history, all the books on Autism that I have read include his work and name. It is more to do with people not wanting their neurodivergent identity to refer directly to someone who has become associated with the murder of disabled children, even if he was not a direct participant in murders.  

I started reading it, but lost interest about a third of the way through.  It just felt too much like hard work.

i found it rather boring and am rather pleased i hadn't bought it.   

History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it does, sadly, paraphrase itself. From the atrocities committed by the Catholics and Protestants to promote themselves by persecuting witches, to the blacklisting of alleged communists carried out under Senator McCarthy, human history has a long list of political and religious crusades led by cruel, selfish, blinkered fanatical groups seeking to consolidate their power and subjugate all that oppose them.  Now we have hunts for the politically incorrect by the fanatical Wokerati screaming for their opponents to be cancelled, have their livelihoods destroyed, their property confiscated. It won't be long before they call for their arrest, imprisonment and execution. 

I'm really not sure about the distinct and separate diagnosis, but I think it is wrong to remove someone's name from history for political reasons, if indeed that is what happened.

Asperger was associated with certain events at a certain time in history. And some people in America did not like this association, and this is why the term has dropped out of use. So argues one Youtuber, I'm not convinced that this is true, although there may be at least some truth to it. It's probably a stretch.

This is partly why I'm ploughing through this wordy book, but I've not got a clear answer on the above from my first listen. It is quite complicated, and I'd have to listen to all of the relevant section again, in the hope that things might become a bit clearer on that point.

The rest of the book so far is patchy, it gets quite interesting in parts and then wanders off again. Like most things, you've got to be in the right mood, I guess.

I haven't read it.  I think it was a mistake to remove Asperger's a distinct diagnosis.  Asperger's, for me at least, is not the same as autism. They are two different conditions. Even if the name is not appealing to those with certain social or political ideologies (what names and labels are universally appealing?), then find another name,  but bring it back as a separate diagnosis.