Overview

With US soldiers stationed around the world and engaged in multiple conflicts, Americans will be forced for the foreseeable future to come to terms with those permanently disabled in battle. At the moment, we accept rehabilitation as the proper social and cultural response to the wounded, swiftly returning injured combatants to their civilian lives. But this was not always the case, as Beth Linker reveals in her provocative new book, War’s Waste. Linker explains how, before entering World War I, the United States sought a way to avoid the enormous cost of providing injured soldiers with pensions, which it had done since the Revolutionary War. Emboldened by their faith in the new social and medical sciences, reformers pushed rehabilitation as a means to “rebuild” disabled soldiers, relieving the nation of a monetary burden and easing the decision to enter the Great War. Linker’s narrative moves from the professional development of orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists to the curative workshops, or hospital spaces where disabled soldiers learned how to repair automobiles as well as their own artificial limbs. The story culminates in the postwar establishment of the Veterans Administration, one of the greatest legacies to come out of the First World War.

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9780226143354

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Reviews

Linker has deftly and expertly woven together numerous historical strands to produce an important book deserving of a wide readership. (Isis) This pathbreaking study opens up exciting avenues for future research. (American Historical Review) Erudite and gracefully written.... Linker explores the cultural, political, and medical meanings ascribed to the rehabilitation of disabled soldiers and veterans during the World War I era.... At a time when thousands of American veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan struggle with disability and rehabilitation, the cultural, political, and institutional foundations of their care-and its inadequacies-deserve this special attention. (Journal of American History)

Author Information

Beth Linker is associate professor in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

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