Shell Shock Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War

by Leese, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781137453372
• ISBN10: 1137453370
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-09-05
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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.

Author Biography

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