基本説明
New in paperback. Hardcover was published in 2001. This book, drawing on a vast range of diaries, interviews, medical papers, and official records, brings toghether the literary, medical, and military lore from the World Wars through Vietman and up to the Gulf War.
Full Description
A War of Nerves is a history of military psychiatry in the twentieth century—an authoritative, accessible account drawing on a vast range of diaries, interviews, medical papers, and official records, from doctors as well as ordinary soldiers. It reaches back to the moment when the technologies of modern warfare and the disciplines of psychological medicine first confronted each other on the Western Front, and traces their uneasy relationship through the eras of shell-shock, combat fatigue, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
At once absorbing historical narrative and intellectual detective story, A War of Nerves weaves together the literary, medical, and military lore to give us a fascinating history of war neuroses and their treatment, from the World Wars through Vietnam and up to the Gulf War. Ben Shephard answers recurring questions about the effects of war. Why do some men crack and others not? Are the limits of resistance determined by character, heredity, upbringing, ideology, or simple biochemistry?
Military psychiatry has long been shrouded in misconception, and haunted by the competing demands of battle and of recovery. Now, for the first time, we have a definitive history of this vital art and science, which illuminates the bumpy efforts to understand the ravages of war on the human mind, and points towards the true lessons to be learned from treating the aftermath of war.
Contents
Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Prologue: The Shock of the Shell 1. Doctors' Minds 2. Shell-Shock in France 3. Trench Work 4. The Somme 5. Psychiatry at the Front, 1917-18 6. Home Fires 7. Europeans 8. Arguments and Enigmas, 1917-18 9. 'Skirting the Edges of Hell' 10. Inquests 11. 'Will Peace Bring Peace?' 12. The Lessons of Shell-Shock 13. Dunkirk, the Blitz and the Blue 14. 'We Can Save those Boys from Horror' 15. Front-line Psychiatry 16. New Ways of War 17. D-Day and After 18. A Tale of Two Hospitals 19. The Helmeted Airman 20. Learning from the Germans? 21. Prisoners of War 22. A Good War? 23. Vietnam Doctors 24. From Post-Vietnam Syndrome to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 25. 'When the Patient Reports Atrocities...' 26. From the Falklands to the Gulf 27. The Culture of Trauma Notes Select Bibliography Index
