Healing the nation: Soldiers and the culture of caregiving in Britain during the Great War (Cultural History of Modern War) - Hardcover

Reznick, Jeffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719069742 ISBN 13: 9780719069741

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Healing the Nation is a study of caregiving during the Great War, exploring life behind the lines for ordinary British soldiers who served on the Western Front. Using a variety of literary, artistic, and architectural evidence, this study draws connections between the war machine and the wartime culture of caregiving: the product of medical knowledge and procedure, social relationships and health institutions that informed experiences of rest, recovery and rehabilitation in sites administered by military and voluntary-aid authorities.

Rest huts, hospitals, and rehabilitation centres served not only as means to sustain manpower and support for the war but also as distinctive sites where soldiers, their caregivers and the public attempted to make sense of the conflict and the unprecedented change it wrought. Revealing aspects of wartime life that have received little attention, this study shows that Britain’s ‘generation of 1914’ was a group bound as much by a comradeship of healing as by a comradeship of the trenches.

The author has used an extensive collection of illustrations in his discussion, and the book will make fascinating reading for students and specialists in the history of war, medicine and gender studies.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeffrey S. Reznick is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Modern History of the University of Birmingham, a member of Birmingham’s Centre for First World War Studies and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. [for the dust jacket]: Jeffrey S. Reznick is Executive Director and Senior Research Fellow of the Orthotic and Prosthetic Assistance Fund. A native of Rochester, New York, he received his undergraduate education at the University of Rochester.

Review:

"Reznick tells a fascinating story with verve and an eye for the big picture. This book makes a substantial contribution to war medicine and the cultural history of war."-- Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck College "A compelling inquiry into the care of wounded soldiers during the First World War. This deeply-researched book provides a new portrait of the 'men in blue'" -- Deborah Cohen, Brown University

"Healing the Nation is an extraordinary exploration of how, following the devastation of World War One, Britain came to terms with the war wounded and how they came to understand themselves. Rarely has a study plumbed the subtleties of the self-image of the wounded victors. Any reader interested in the culture of victory as seen in the medical and cultural experiences of those damaged in war will learn much from Jeffrey Reznick's admirable book" -- Sander Gilman, St. Anne's College, Oxford

"This book is a path-breaking account of sites of healing in Britain during the Great War. It describes a trajectory followed by millions of soldiers from front line to recovery, and shows how medical care and comfort bound together soldiers and civilians through what Reznick terms a culture of care-giving. Rooted firmly in the pre-war Protestant voluntary tradition, this complex effort of restoration bore the imprint of the war machine and to a degree made it tolerable to those disabled on active service. Anyone interested in the Great War, and why it went on for so long, will find answers in this powerful and sensitive study." -- Jay Winter, Yale University

"As sensitive as it is scholarly, Reznick's account of the British culture of care-giving during and after the Great War meets a long overdue need. We know much about the physical and mental suffering inflicted by the war - about the effects of its 'technologies of killing' and its 'rationalizations of slaughter'. But when it comes to the pervasive humanitarianism that the war also inspired we have remained almost in denial. Healing the Nation is a dedicated exercise in the delicate removal of historical bandages and historiographical blinkers. Poignant personal recollections of care, compassion and camaraderie are but the half of it; exposed, as well, are the festering rivalries and frustrations among and between the secular and religious agencies involved. Around the provision of tent-huts, hospitals, and homes of recovery, Reznick lays bare the bountiful differences between the self-constructed images of the care-givers and the realities of their charity. Given the current 'crisis' in the practice and public representation of humanitarian aid, this is a not untimely intervention by a deeply committed historian-practitioner." -- Roger Cooter, University College London

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0719069742
• ISBN 13: 9780719069741
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192