Overview

Everyone knows what is feels like to be in pain. Scraped knees, toothaches, migraines, giving birth, cancer, heart attacks, and heartaches: pain permeates our entire lives. We also witness other people - loved ones - suffering, and we 'feel with' them. It is easy to assume this is the end of the story: 'pain-is-pain-is-pain', and that is all there is to say. But it is not. In fact, the way in which people respond to what they describe as 'painful' has changed considerably over time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, people believed that pain served a specific (and positive) function - it was a message from God or Nature; it would perfect the spirit. 'Suffer in this life and you wouldn't suffer in the next one'. Submission to pain was required. Nothing could be more removed from twentieth and twenty-first century understandings, where pain is regarded as an unremitting evil to be 'fought'. Focusing on the English-speaking world, this book tells the story of pain since the eighteenth century, addressing fundamental questions about the experience and nature of suffering over the last three centuries. How have those in pain interpreted their suffering - and how have these interpretations changed over time? How have people learnt to conduct themselves when suffering? How do friends and family react? And what about medical professionals: should they immerse themselves in the suffering person or is the best response a kind of professional detachment? As Joanna Bourke shows in this fascinating investigation, people have come up with many different answers to these questions over time. And a history of pain can tell us a great deal about how we might respond to our own suffering in the present - and, just as importantly, to the suffering of those around us.

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9780199689422

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Reviews

The breadth of The Story of Pain is one of its principal strengths, as the book's fascinating and illuminating examples shift masterfully and continually across the Western world and between the 18th century and the present day ... Bourke has provided a remarkable book, which is both highly valuable in its own right and which also provides the groundwork and impetus for further study. The Story of Pain is a detailed, thought-provoking and fascinating piece of historical scholarship. Dr. Jennifer Crane, Reviews in History Bourke's book is a magnificent feat of research ... As an insight into the roots of medical perspectives on pain, and why we're often so bad at tackling it, Bourke's history will help. Gavin Francis, London Review of Books Bourke has interesting things to say about the language of pain ... [She] has read widely, and produced some interesting refelctions on what it means to be in pain, how pain is socially structured and dealth with, as well as the limits of our contemporary embrace of chemical means of coping with pain. Andrew Scull, The Times Literary Supplement The Story of Pain is a fascinating rousing story of mad and wanton cruelty: throughout human history, such shafts of compassion only occasionally and reluctantly break through. Roger Lewis, Daily Mail What Bourke has given us is an extensive and beautifully organized collection of materials that will serve as an invaluable resource for researchers from many different disciplines. It is a formidable scholarly achievement, which sheds a varied and often unexpected light on one of the most pervasive and challenging aspects of human existence. John Cottingham, Tablet It is a tightly argued account of pain as vital to the concerns of bioscientists and clinicians as it is to the interests of scholars of the humanities and the human sciences. Brian Hurwitz, Times Higher Education This is a compelling history of a great source of human misery. Leyla Sanai, Independent on Sunday [A] perceptive study. Nature A serious, absorbing book James McConnachie, Sunday Times Enthralling ... Drawing on philosophy, history, medicine, literature and even theology. The Story of Pain invites us to look again at a fundamental aspect of human life, and to reconsider the richness and the poverty of pain. Richard Bennet, Lancet Erudite and witty ... Joanna Bourke is that rare bird, an academic who manages to combine erudite scholarship with a sharp wit and an accessible prose style. This is a bold and impressive book about an enemy that knows no historical or cultural bounds. Salley Vickers, The Observer [A] riveting study, which feels timely and important. Max Liu, The Independent The Story of Pain shines valuable light into a universal experience. Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph The Story of Pain conveys sensations with wincing precision and an admirable humanity. Simon Ings, New Scientist Ambitious and original. Jonathan Ree, the guardian Enthralling. Jim Young, Glycosmedia A book that deserves wide readership. Church of England newspaper Joanna Bourke has drawn a fascinating picture of pain from a very broad perspective both in terms of time and in the sources she uses. We see how attitudes to pain have changed over the centuries and how our modern technological advances are again changing how we communicate pain and its suffering. Are we less courageous when dealing with pain than our ancestors were? asks Joanna Bourke. Astonishing what I have learnt about pain from a historian, which will be of value in my clinical work. An absorbing and thought provoking book, a must read for pain physicians. Professor Joanna Zakrzewska, UCL

`Erudite and witty ... Joanna Bourke is that rare bird, an academic who manages to combine erudite scholarship with a sharp wit and an accessible prose style. This is a bold and impressive book about an enemy that knows no historical or cultural bounds.' Salley Vickers, The Observer `[A] riveting study, which feels timely and important.' Max Liu, The Independent `The Story of Pain shines valuable light into a universal experience.' Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph `The Story of Pain conveys sensations with wincing precision and an admirable humanity.' Simon Ings, New Scientist `Ambitious and original.' Jonathan Ree, the guardian `Enthralling.' Jim Young, Glycosmedia `A book that deserves wide readership.' Church of England newspaper `Joanna Bourke has drawn a fascinating picture of pain from a very broad perspective both in terms of time and in the sources she uses. We see how attitudes to pain have changed over the centuries and how our modern technological advances are again changing how we communicate pain and its suffering. Are we less courageous when dealing with pain than our ancestors were? asks Joanna Bourke. Astonishing what I have learnt about pain from a historian, which will be of value in my clinical work. An absorbing and thought provoking book, a must read for pain physicians.' Professor Joanna Zakrzewska, UCL

What Bourke has given us is an extensive and beautifully organized collection of materials that will serve as an invaluable resource for researchers from many different disciplines. It is a formidable scholarly achievement, which sheds a varied and often unexpected light on one of the most pervasive and challenging aspects of human existence. John Cottingham, Tablet It is a tightly argued account of pain as vital to the concerns of bioscientists and clinicians as it is to the interests of scholars of the humanities and the human sciences. Brian Hurwitz, Times Higher Education This is a compelling history of a great source of human misery. Leyla Sanai, Independent on Sunday [A] perceptive study. Nature A serious, absorbing book James McConnachie, Sunday Times Enthralling ... Drawing on philosophy, history, medicine, literature and even theology. The Story of Pain invites us to look again at a fundamental aspect of human life, and to reconsider the richness and the poverty of pain. Richard Bennet, Lancet Erudite and witty ... Joanna Bourke is that rare bird, an academic who manages to combine erudite scholarship with a sharp wit and an accessible prose style. This is a bold and impressive book about an enemy that knows no historical or cultural bounds. Salley Vickers, The Observer [A] riveting study, which feels timely and important. Max Liu, The Independent The Story of Pain shines valuable light into a universal experience. Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph The Story of Pain conveys sensations with wincing precision and an admirable humanity. Simon Ings, New Scientist Ambitious and original. Jonathan Ree, the guardian Enthralling. Jim Young, Glycosmedia A book that deserves wide readership. Church of England newspaper Joanna Bourke has drawn a fascinating picture of pain from a very broad perspective both in terms of time and in the sources she uses. We see how attitudes to pain have changed over the centuries and how our modern technological advances are again changing how we communicate pain and its suffering. Are we less courageous when dealing with pain than our ancestors were? asks Joanna Bourke. Astonishing what I have learnt about pain from a historian, which will be of value in my clinical work. An absorbing and thought provoking book, a must read for pain physicians. Professor Joanna Zakrzewska, UCL

Ambitious and original. Jonathan Ree, the guardian Enthralling. Jim Young, Glycosmedia Joanna Bourke has drawn a fascinating picture of pain from a very broad perspective both in terms of time and in the sources she uses. We see how attitudes to pain have changed over the centuries and how our modern technological advances are again changing how we communicate pain and its suffering. Are we less courageous when dealing with pain than our ancestors were? asks Joanna Bourke. Astonishing what I have learnt about pain from a historian, which will be of value in my clinical work. An absorbing and thought provoking book, a must read for pain physicians. Professor Joanna Zakrzewska, UCL

Author Information

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the prize-winning author of nine books, including histories of modern warfare, military medicine, psychology and psychiatry, the emotions, and rape. Among others, she is the author of Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain, and the Great War (1996), An Intimate History of Killing (1999), Fear: A Cultural History (2005) and Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present (2007), and What it Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present (2011). An Intimate History of Killing won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize, and 'Eyewitness', her audio history of Britain, won a number of prizes, including the Gold for the Most Original Audio. She is also a frequent contributor to TV and radio shows, and a regular newspaper correspondent.

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