Fear - by Joanna Bourke (Paperback)

About the Book

Whether we like it or not, an atmosphere of fear pervades modern culture. In America, each day is color-coded for the level of threat; newspapers fill with gloomy news of climate crisis; and the radio and TV bleat with Amber alerts, car crashes, and the war wounded.
In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian Joanna Bourke helps us understand the landscape of fear we now navigate. Her review of the past two hundred years -- from diagnosed phobias to the media's role in creating new ones -- prompts strikingly original observations about the mind and worldview of the "long twentieth century." Blending sociocultural analysis with psychology, philosophy, and popular science, this beautifully written and exhaustively researched book offers an authoritative look at one of humankind's most basic emotions.

Book Synopsis

Fear -- the word, itself, conjures the appropriate response. With a dark cacophony of associations like fright, dread, horror, panic, alarm, anxiety, and terror, fear is universally understood as one of the most basic and powerful of human emotions, obtaining a nearly palpable and overwhelming substance in today's world.

In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed historian and prize-winning author Joanna Bourke covers the landscape of fear over the past two hundred years: From the nineteenth century dread of being buried alive -- a subject dear to the heart of Edgar Allen Poe -- to the current worry over being able to die when one chooses; from the diagnoses of phobias and anxieties produced by psychotherapists and lovingly catalogued, to the role of popular culture and media in inciting panic and dread; from the horrors of the nuclear age to the fear of twenty-first century terrorism, Fear tells the story of anguish in modern times.

A blend of social and cultural history with psychology, philosophy, and popular science, this astonishing book -- exhaustively researched and beautifully written -- offers strikingly original insights into the mind and worldview of the "long twentieth century" from one of the most brilliant scholars of our time.

Review Quotes

"ÝBourke¨ raises a wry, cool eyebrow at the hyperbole of hysteria. She assesses risk rather than quavers before it. She puts fear in its proper place--as part of our pattern of life. . . . This is a journey full of wit and scholarship, an enthralling read that makes you inspect your own psyche. . . . Turn inwards and you may never be quite so afraid again."

"ÝT¨his book considers things that go bump in the night and why they scare us from a social sciences perspective. . . . ÝA¨ well-written discussion of fear and trembling."

"Bourke performs a sterling service, painstakingly picking over usually bypassed sources and materials for hidden clues as to what scares us."

About the Author

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, where she has taught since 1992. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. Her books range from the social and economic history of Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to social histories of the British working classes between 1860 and 1960s, to cultural histories of military conflict between the Anglo-Boer war and the present. She explores history through the lens of gender, ivtersectionalities, and subjectivities. She has worked on the history of the emotions, particularly fear and hatred, and the history of sexual violence. In the past few years, her research has focused on questions of humanity, militarisation, and pain. She wrote a book entitled What It Means to Be Human. In 2014, she published two books: Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War Games Invade Our World and The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers.