Description
Book SynopsisIn the popular imagination, Civil War disability is synonymous with amputation. But war affects the body in countless ways. Sarah Handley-Cousins expands our understanding of wartime disability by examining a variety of bodies and ailments, ranging from the temporary to the chronic, from disease to injury, and both physical and mental conditions.
Trade ReviewWhen we think of Civil War disabilities, our thoughts commonly turn to legions of brave amputees, navigating life with the highly visible marker of their wartime sacrifice. In this deeply researched and theoretically sophisticated book, Sarah Handley-Cousins tells a much more complex story of the illnesses and injuries that Civil War soldiers and veterans endured. . . . This is a story about how individuals and institutions battled over how bodies should be defined and categorized and treated by the state. This is a very important book.""- J. Matthew Gallman, author of
The North Fights the Civil War;
""In recent years, historians of the American Civil War have increasingly turned their attention to studying the ""dark"" side of the war: the trauma, the devastation, the ruin, and despair. Sarah Handley-Cousins adds to this growing scholarship with her consideration of the broader social and cultural understanding of war-related disabilities in the Civil War North. . . .
Bodies in Blue deserves to be on every Civil War reading list, as it highlights just how much the war affected many of those who fought in it.""- Angela Riotto, H-SHGAPE;
""It makes a valuable contribution to the literature by bringing together in one accessible volume several of the approaches taken by historians of recent years, providing a well-written book that could work very well in undergraduate and some graduate courses. The scholarship is deep enough and the coverage is broad enough to give nonspecialists and students a very good introduction not only to the true cost of the Civil War but also to the attitudes of veterans and nonveterans that so powerfully reflected the moral and medical assumptions of the era.""- James Marten,
Journal of African American History.
