Shell Shock:The Psychological Impact of War

by WendyHolden (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.40

  An authoritative and fascinating account of masculinity, madness and the ethics of war. Shell Shock is the story of the mind at war. For centuries we have acknowledged the terrible physical effects of warfare, but it is only in the twentieth century, with the significant changes in the nature of war and our attitude towards it, that we have begun to realize the profound psychological effects of sending individuals to the front line. This book charts society's attempts to distinguish between madness and cowardice, in conflicts from the First World War to Bosnia. In a shifting moral landscape it details the revolution in military attitudes to the fragility of men.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $3.80

  The terrible physical effects of sending men into battle have always been self-evident, but only in modern times have the psychological effects been examined. Killing, watching friends die, leading soldiers to their deaths - all have a profound effect on those involved in the front line of war. There is a limit to what a soldier can endure before he becomes the victim of shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD, or whatever terminology is in vogue. In this book, linked to a Channel 4 television series, individual soldiers tell their own stories of horrors to which they have been exposed, and of events that pushed them to the brink of human endurance. The author also relates the history of military psychiatry and the scientists who have to balance the demands of the army to cure soldiers and return them to battle with the demands of the soldiers themselves, struggling to understand their condition.