Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War 2002nd Edition
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Editorial Reviews
Review
'One of the crucial and most moving episodes of twentieth century British history has now found its worthy historian. Peter Leese writes the story of shell shock with expertise and flair, with critical detachment and compassion. Avoiding judgementalism, he brings out the full enormity of this tragic story.' - Professor Roy Porter, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine
'The book fills a glaring gap in our historical knowledge.' - Mark Micale, Associate Professor of History, University of Illinois
'Shell shock was born as a condition in 1915 but has grown to become a metaphor for the horrors of total war. Leese tells the story of that evolution with learning, sympathy and a shrewd sense of the way medical history can illuminate our understanding of the violent twentieth-century as a whole.' - Professor Jay Winter, Department of History, Yale University
'...a powerful and authoritative study of the war's mental legacy.' - Ben Shephard, Times Literary Supplement
'Those willing to pay attention, however, will be rewarded by this first full-length treatment of Britain's 'shell-shock' experience.' - Maureen T. Moore, Journal of Military History
'...an interesting contribution both to medical history and to the continuing debate about...WWI. - T.L. Crosby, Choice
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan; 2002nd edition (September 21, 2002)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 033396926X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0333969267
- Item Weight : 15.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.51 x 0.56 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,438,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,675 in Popular Neuropsychology
- #9,168 in World War I History (Books)
- #29,506 in Medical General Psychology
- Customer Reviews:
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Still, because the subject was tabooed at the time of the war, the reader gets the feeling that, try as the author may to investigate and understand how soldiers and doctors talked about these subjects, his path is barred by either the erasure of records (to respect the privacy, especially of the officers) or just the refusal of soldiers to divulge too much about their conditions. We may be curious about what these psychologically wounded men thought, but In a war in which soldiers were still being executed for cowardice, one can hardly blame these poor fellows for not being eager to speak honestly about their burgeoning neuroses, or to even admit their conditions to themselves.
Leese is on much more solid ground when he leaves the medical literature produced during the war, and engages with the retconning of war experience in the post-war period, both by artists who were soldiers (like Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves) as well as by the playwrights and poets who created works that, while sometimes too didactic, were at least earnest attempts to understand why so many had to die in what one writer called "The great swindle."
There are some bits of interesting information here, and occasionally Leese does manage to find a record in which a soldier or doctor breathes life into the work and helps us understand their pain and confusion, but on the whole it feels like those from whom we needed to hear most are unfortunately the mutest in this work. That, of course, is not due to the fault of the diligent and insightful author, but I would be lying if I didn't say that after I closed the book I didn't feel as if my curiosity had not even begun to be sated. I will search elsewhere, probably in fiction. Still, the book is not without its positive aspects. Thus, a qualified recommendation.
Additionally, I have to agree with another commenter. The cover bothers me. This is a photograph of a patient. I would assume part of a medical record, or was, at one time. He is so completely exposed and vulnerable, literally. While it is a compelling photograph that reveals symptomatology and the broad scope and intensity of suffering, and I would hope evokes a strong visceral response in the viewer, to use it as the cover is disrespectful to him and in poor taste. Sensibility, sensitivity, privacy (and I don't mean a knee jerk excessive HIPAA type variety of privacy, but of the private life) and sense of self, and I'm referring in all of these to him, and appropriateness and respect, and I'm referring to ours, are not superficial and meaningless dynamics, even across a hundred years of time. There are other photographs available to the publisher and the author that they could use I'm sure. The face of the sufferer as the focus; individuals in contexts, such as battlefield photographs, that are just as compelling, and in a style that have been used for other texts just as successfully. I would urge a different editorial choice for the paperback edition.
Top reviews from other countries
Leese takes the reader through the major controversies and conflicts that occurred among medical knowledge, treatment patterns, and everyday experiences of the shell-shocked soldiers. Perhaps most importantly, Leese's book contributes to a recent historical trend that examines shell shock, battle exhaustion, and post-traumatic stress disorder as culturally-shaped phenomena that each bore their own distinct patterns of symptoms and expressions. As Leese demonstrates, shell shock was not necessarily the precursor to PTSD, and although trauma seems to share certain universal symptoms (nightmares, etc.) each major conflict produces distinct disorders that arise from medical knowledge and cultural influences such as news reporting, negotiations between doctors and patients, and popular societal conceptions.
This is a first-rate book and will stand the test of time. I expect to read it twenty years from now and still find it has a lot to say about current ideas of trauma, war, and postwar society.
