A Weary Road
Shell Shock in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2019
- Category
- General, World War I, History, Canada
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781442644717
- Publish Date
- Oct 2018
- List Price
- $54.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442661417
- Publish Date
- Nov 2018
- List Price
- $45.00
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781487525187
- Publish Date
- Sep 2019
- List Price
- $37.95
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Description
More than 16,000 Canadian soldiers suffered from shell shock during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Despite significant interest from historians, we still know relatively little about how it was experienced, diagnosed, treated, and managed in the frontline trenches in the Canadian and British forces.
How did soldiers relate to suffering comrades? Did large numbers of shell shock cases affect the outcome of important battles? Was frontline psychiatric treatment as effective as many experts claimed after the war? Were Canadians treated any differently than other Commonwealth soldiers? A Weary Road is the first comprehensive study to address these important questions. Author Mark Osborne Humphries uses research from Canadian, British, and Australian archives, including hundreds of newly available hospital records and patient medical files, to provide a history of war trauma as it was experienced, treated, and managed by ordinary soldiers.
About the author
Mark Humphries is an assistant professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he teaches war and society and military history. His books include The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health (forthcoming) and The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie (2008). His article “War’s Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine, and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914–1939” won the 2010 Canadian Historical Review Prize.
John Maker received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Ottawa in 2010. He currently teaches for the Royal Military College and is a professional researcher in Ottawa, Ontario.
Wilhelm J. Kiesselbach (translator) was born in Hamburg, Germany, where he completed a B.A. in English and journalism. After emigrating to the United States he was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army and spent seven years with Seventh Army Headquarters in Germany as translator and interpreter. For his service in Vietnam, he was decorated with the Army Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star.
Awards
- Winner, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles of 2019 awarded by the American Library Association
Editorial Reviews
"With A Weary Road, Humphries deftly tackles the immensely complicated topic of shell shock: how it was understood and diagnosed, the vivisions within the medical community, how treatment evlved over the course of the war, and how medical and military interests could collide."
Literary Review of Canada, Vol 27, no. 2
Other titles by
The Frontier of Patriotism
Alberta and the First World War
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War
Canadian Battlefields of the First World War
A Visitor's Guide
Germany’s Western Front: 1914
Translations from the German Official History of the Great War, Part 1
War's Lingering Touch
Shell Shocked Veterans of Canada's Great War, 1914-1918
The Last Plague
Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada
Germany’s Western Front: 1915
Translations from the German Official History of the Great War
The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie
Diaries, Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917-1933