Shell Shock

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.

An exploration of the unique British cultural heritage of 'shell shock', which has held such an important position as part of the popular memory (poetry, fiction, film) of the Great War through the twentieth century The author uses original and unusual source material: medical records, personal writings in diaries, hospital magazines etc. to give a unique insight into personal experience Leese's work has been endorsed by Professor Jay Winter of Yale University and Professor Roy Porter of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine

Autorentext
PETER LEESE is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural History at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

Inhalt
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