This is a history of military psychiatry in the twentieth century. Both absorbing historical narrative and intellectual detective story, it weaves literary, medical, and military lore to give us a fascinating history of war neuroses and their treatment, from the World Wars through Vietnam and up to the Gulf War.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [469]-473) and index.

Prologue: the shock of the shell -- Doctors' minds -- Shell-shock in France -- Trench work -- The Somme -- Psychiatry at the front, 1917-18 -- Home fires -- Europeans -- Arguments and enigmas, 1917-18 -- 'Skirting the edges of hell' -- Inquests -- 'Will peace bring peace?' -- The lessons of shell-shock -- Dunkirk, the Blitz and the Blue -- 'We can save those boys from horror' -- Front-line psychiatry -- New ways of war -- D-Day and after -- A tale of two hospitals -- The helmeted airman -- Learning from the Germans? -- Prisoners of war -- A good war? -- Vietnam doctors -- From Post-Vietnam Syndrome to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder -- 'When the patient reports atrocities...' -- From the Falklands to the Gulf -- The culture of trauma.