Book ID: CBB001552823

Pain: A Political History (2014)

unapi

Wailoo, Keith (Author)


Johns Hopkins University Press


Publication Date: 2014
Physical Details: 284 pp.; ill.
Language: English

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.

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Reviewed By

Review Noémi Tousignant (2015) Review of "Pain: A Political History". Social History of Medicine (pp. 398-399). unapi

Review David Herzberg (2016) Review of "Pain: A Political History". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 242-246). unapi

Review Flurin Condrau (2016) Review of "The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 377-379). unapi

Review Lauri Umansky (2015) Review of "Pain: A Political History". American Historical Review (pp. 1920-1921). unapi

Review Duncan, Grant (2015) Review of "Pain: A Political History". Medical History (pp. 637-639). unapi

Review Meldrum, Marcia L. (2015) Review of "Pain: A Political History". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 625-626). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001552823/

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Authors & Contributors
Bourke, Joanna
Audra Jennings
Hyrkäs, Eve-Riina
Ron E. Hassner
Dannick Rivest
E. M. Jones
Concepts
Pain
Disabilities; disability; accessibility
Medicine and politics
Medicine
Medicine and society
World War II
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
18th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
United States
Great Britain
Spain
Europe
Canada
Botswana
Institutions
La Fédération québécoise de l’autisme
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