Pain: A Political History - Softcover

Wailoo, Keith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1421418401 ISBN 13: 9781421418407

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Pain touches sensitive nerves in American liberalism, conservatism, and political life.

People in chronic pain have always sought relief―and have always been judged―but who decides whether someone is truly in pain? In this history of American political culture, Keith Wailoo examines how pain and compassionate relief define a line between society's liberal trends and conservative tendencies. Tracing the development of pain theories in politics, medicine, law, and society, and battles over the morality and economics of relief, Wailoo points to a tension at the heart of the conservative-liberal divide.

Beginning with the advent of a pain relief economy after World War II in response to concerns about recovering soldiers, Wailoo explores the 1960s rise of an expansive liberal pain standard, along with the emerging conviction that subjective pain was real, disabling, and compensable. These concepts were attacked during the Reagan era of the 1980s, when a conservative political backlash led to decreasing disability aid and the growing role of the courts as arbiters in the politicized struggle to define pain.

Wailoo identifies how new fronts in pain politics opened in the 1990s in states like Oregon and Michigan, where advocates for death with dignity insisted that end-of-life pain warranted full relief. In the 2006 arrest of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Wailoo finds a cautionary tale about deregulation, which spawned an unmanageable market in pain relief products as well as gaps between the overmedicated and the undertreated. Today's debates over who is in pain, who feels another's pain, and what relief is deserved form new chapters in the ongoing story of liberal relief and conservative care.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Wailoo is the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs and Vice Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America, Pain: A Political History, and Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health.

From the Back Cover

In this history of American political culture, Keith Wailoo examines how pain has defined the line between liberals and conservatives from just after World War II to the present. From disabling pain to end-of-life pain to fetal pain, the battle over whose pain is real and who deserves relief has created stark ideological divisions at the bedside, in politics, and in the courts.

Beginning with the return of soldiers after World War II and fierce medical and political disagreements about whether pain constitutes a true disability, Wailoo explores the 1960s rise of an expansive liberal pain standard along with the emerging conviction that subjective pain was real, disabling, and compensable. These concepts were attacked during the Reagan era, when a conservative backlash led to diminished disability aid and an expanding role of courts as arbiters in the politicized struggle to define pain. New fronts in pain politics opened nationwide as advocates for death with dignity insisted that end-of-life pain warranted full relief, while the religious right mobilized around fetal pain.

The book ends with the 2003 OxyContin arrest of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a cautionary tale about deregulation and the widening gaps between the overmedicated and the undertreated.

"Beautifully written, broad ranging, deep, wise, unexpected, and endlessly fascinating."―James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History and coauthor of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office

Keith Wailoo is the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs and Vice Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine: Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease and Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America.

From the Inside Flap

In this history of American political culture, Keith Wailoo examines how pain has defined the line between liberals and conservatives from just after World War II to the present. From disabling pain to end-of-life pain to fetal pain, the battle over whose pain is real and who deserves relief has created stark ideological divisions at the bedside, in politics, and in the courts.

Beginning with the return of soldiers after World War II and fierce medical and political disagreements about whether pain constitutes a true disability, Wailoo explores the 1960s rise of an expansive liberal pain standard along with the emerging conviction that subjective pain was real, disabling, and compensable. These concepts were attacked during the Reagan era, when a conservative backlash led to diminished disability aid and an expanding role of courts as arbiters in the politicized struggle to define pain. New fronts in pain politics opened nationwide as advocates for death with dignity insisted that end-of-life pain warranted full relief, while the religious right mobilized around fetal pain.

The book ends with the 2003 OxyContin arrest of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a cautionary tale about deregulation and the widening gaps between the overmedicated and the undertreated.

Beautifully written, broad ranging, deep, wise, unexpected, and endlessly fascinating.--James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History and coauthor of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office

Keith Wailoo is the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs and Vice Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine: Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease and Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America.

--James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History and coauthor of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office "National Journal"

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1421418401
• ISBN 13: 9781421418407
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296