Bookshelf

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930

By (author) Paul Lerner

| on special |

normal price: R 1 920.95

Price: R 1 728.95


| book description |

Paul Lerner traces the intertwined histories of trauma and male hysteria in German society and psychiatry and shows how these concepts were swept up into debates about Germany's national health, economic productivity, and military strength in the years surrounding World War I. From a growing concern with industrial accidents in the 1880s through the shell shock ""epidemic"" of the war, male hysteria seemed to bespeak the failings of German masculinity. In response, psychiatrists struggled to turn male-hysterical bodies into fit workers and loyal political subjects. Medical approaches to trauma valorized work and productivity as standards of male health, and psychiatric treatment—whether through hypnosis, electric current, or suggestion—concentrated on turning debilitated soldiers into symptom-free workers. These concerns endured through the Weimar period, as ""nervous veterans"" competed for disability compensation amid the republic's political crises and economic upheavals. Hysterical Men shows how wartime psychiatry furthered the process of medical rationalization. Lerner views this not as a precursor to the brutalities of Nazi-era psychiatry, but rather as characteristic of a more general medicalized modernity. The author asserts, however, that psychiatry's continual skepticism toward trauma resonated powerfully with the radical right's celebration of war and violence and its supposedly salutary effects on men and nations.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days
Publisher | Cornell University Press
Published date | 12 Feb 2009
Language |
Format | Paperback / softback
Pages | 344
Dimensions | 235 x 155 x 21mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 907g
ISBN | 978-0-8014-7536-8
Readership Age |
BISAC | psychology / social psychology


| other options |


| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

The Correspondent

Virginia Evans
Hardback
288 pages
was: R 552.95
now: R 497.95
Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days


Exiles: Times book of the month 'Stanley Kubrick meets MR James'

Mason Coile
Paperback / softback
224 pages
was: R 520.95
now: R 468.95
Forthcoming

A terrifying locked-room mystery set in a remote outpost on Mars.

Theory & Practice

Michelle de Kretser
Hardback
192 pages
was: R 415.95
now: R 373.95
Available from overseas. Dispatched in aprox 4-8 weeks as local supplier is out of stock


Broken Country: AMAZON'S BOOK OF THE YEAR - THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER

Clare Leslie Hall
Paperback / softback
320 pages
was: R 395.95
now: R 355.95
Usually dispatched in 6-12 days

An epic love story with the pulse of a thriller that asks: what would you risk for a second chance at first love?