Hysteria, insomnia, hypochondria, asthma, skin rashes, hay fever, premature baldness, inebriety, nervous exhaustion, brain-collapse--all were symptoms of neuras

Paper edition of a 1991 study. The subject is "a cultural complex--a disease called neurasthenia" (from the preface), examined at a specific historical "moment"

For much of the nineteenth century, the nervous system was a medical mystery, inspiring scientific studies and exciting great public interest. Because of this w

Contributors from areas including history, literary and cultural studies, and film studies look at the body as a cultural construct configured by politics, gend

From the author of Crying, a witty, wide-ranging cultural history of our attitudes toward work—and getting out of it Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, g