杏吧原创

A War of Nerves is a fascinating and harrowing book. It is a history of what
in the First World War was called 鈥渟hell shock鈥�, that easy name for the complete
鈥渕oral鈥� and physical collapse of an individual soldier, and its reception by the
military. The British were apt to treat it with an accusation of cowardice and
treat it with prison or sometimes a firing squad. During the Second World War
the US鈥檚 General Patton slapped a soldier who was in hospital with a similar
diagnosis鈥� and malaria. But Ben Shephard shows that most of the 20th
century saw a campaign to find out what causes soldiers to break down and to
develop ways to help them recover. Published by Jonathan Cape, 拢20,
ISBN 0224060333.