Synopses & Reviews
Who were the shell shocked soldiers of the First World War? How did the warfare they experienced, the military discipline they often endured, the medical treatment they encountered shape their post-war lives? Peter Leese's Shell Shock, now published for the first time in paperback, narrates their stories to demonstrate the wider implications of shell shock. In its origins, shell shock in the Great War tells us about the new industrial technologies and mentalities of modernity. In its after-life, shell shock helps us understand the histories of violence, trauma and memory through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.
Review
"A powerful and authoritative study of the war's mental legacy." - Ben Shephard,
Times Literary Supplement"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, USA
"He ably constructs the cultural legacies, giving a good review of artists from Wilfred Owen to Pat Barker crafting shell shock to symbolize the futility of war, the knavery of the leadership class, and the fragility of traditional gender values and roles." - Maureen T. Moore, Journal of Military History
"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." - Roy Porter, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UK
Synopsis
To the British soldiers of the Great War who heard about it, 'shell shock' was uncanny, amusing and sad. To those who experienced it, the condition was shameful, unjustly stigmatized and life-changing. The first full-length study of the British 'shell shocked' soldiers of the Great War combines social and medical history to investigate the experience of psychological casualties on the Western Front, in hospitals, and through their postwar lives. It also investigates the condition's origin and consequences within British culture.
Synopsis
Preface Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: DISCOVERIES Shocking Modernity: Hysteria, Technology and Warfare Casualties: On the Western Front PART II: WARTIME Enlistment: Army Policy, Politics and the Press Treatment: On the Home Front Patients: The Other Ranks Patients: The Officer Ranks PART II: LEGACIES Demobilization: On Returning Home Veterans: War Neurotic Ex-Servicemen Recall: The Great War in the Twentieth Century Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
About the Author
Peter Leese is Associate Professor of British History at the Institute of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His publications include Britain Since 1945: Aspects of Identity (2006). He has also co-written and edited The British Migrant Experience 1700-2000 (2002) and Migration, Narration, Identity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (2013).
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
PART I: DISCOVERIES
2. Shocking Modernity: Hysteria, Technology and Warfare
3. Casualties: On the Western Front
PART II: WARTIME
4. Enlistment: Army Policy, Politics and the Press
5. Treatment: On the Home Front
6. Patients: The Other Ranks
7. Patients: The Officer Ranks
PART II: LEGACIES
8. Demobilization: On Returning Home
9. Veterans: War Neurotic Ex-Servicemen
10. Recall: The Great War in the Twentieth Century
11. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index