Aberration of Mind - by Diane Miller Sommerville (Paperback)

About the Book

This book studies the meaning of suicide in the nineteenth-century South and how that meaning changed, if at all, as a result of the Civil War and its aftermath. It looks at the whole South while providing a more thorough examination than previous books of the dynamics of both the racial and gendered dimensions of suicide in the South during the long Civil War Era.

Book Synopsis

More than 150 years after its end, we still struggle to understand the full extent of the human toll of the Civil War and the psychological crisis it created. In Aberration of Mind, Diane Miller Sommerville offers the first book-length treatment of suicide in the South during the Civil War era, giving us insight into both white and black communities, Confederate soldiers and their families, as well as the enslaved and newly freed. With a thorough examination of the dynamics of both racial and gendered dimensions of psychological distress, Sommerville reveals how the suffering experienced by Southerners living in a war zone generated trauma that, in extreme cases, led some Southerners to contemplate or act on suicidal thoughts.

Sommerville recovers previously hidden stories of individuals exhibiting suicidal activity or aberrant psychological behavior she links to the war and its aftermath. This work adds crucial nuance to our understanding of how personal suffering shaped the way southerners viewed themselves in the Civil War era and underscores the full human costs of war.

Review Quotes

"A worthy contribution to the scholarship on the experiences of ordinary citizens during the Civil War era and to the literature on the trauma of war."--Journal of Southern History

"Cutting across the pages is a skillful discussion and understanding of Civil War South, women's history, racial history, and the history of medicine."--Journal of American History

"Like the human mind, the subject matter of this work is deeply complex, yet Sommerville has produced an eminently readable analysis and made an important contribution that will doubtless become required reading for students and scholars of the Civil War era and the history of mental illness."--Journal of Arizona History

"Sommerville gives a well-researched, powerful monograph that paves the way for other historians doing research in this field. She presents the experience of suicide from many angles and grounds that examination in the words and experiences of southerners themselves. The resulting analysis is a valuable contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century American society, the impact of the Civil War on the South, and the understanding and treatment of mental illness in the Civil War era."--H-Net Reviews