Fear: A Cultural History
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.
- Author
- Joanna Bourke
- Format
- hardcover
- Pages
- 512
- Publisher
- Counterpoint
- Language
- english
- ISBN
- 9781593761134
- Genres
- history, psychology, sociology, microhistory, anthropology
- Release date
- 2006
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