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Hystories: Hysteria, Gender and Culture
 
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Hystories: Hysteria, Gender and Culture [Hardcover]

Elaine Showalter (Author)

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Elaine Showalter
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Product Description

Product Description

Hysteria has traditionally been seen as a female disorder but in this study of its cultural implications, the author argues that it is a universal illness and that far from dying out with the end of the Victorian sexual repression it is becoming more widespread and manifest. Showalter identifies Gulf War syndrome, recovered memory, chronic fatigue syndrome, even claims of ritual satanic abuse, as the contemporary forms of the illness and by recognizing its universality releases women from the limiting association with hysteria.

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Amazon.com:  1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Good read, but slightly lacking focus 4 May 2005
By David Jameson - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
The difficulty with a book on hysteria is that by definition it covers a multitude of vaguely defined subjects. Showalter tries, and mostly succeeds, in describing what was meant by "hysteria" throughout different periods of history, showing how it was viewed by patients and physicians. She discusses the changing theories about the causes of hysteria, as well as showing how the symptoms themselves changed as patients ideas about hysteria changed. While being interesting and well-written, the discussion of psychosomatic illness was slightly lacking in depth and science: I preferred Edward Shorter's "From Paralysis to Fatigue".

The book also covers modern forms of "mass hysteria", such as alien abduction, recovered memory and chronic fatigue syndrome, showing how easily people can be persuaded to believe that their problems are caused by some outside entity rather than looking at their own emotional problems or stresses.

Showalter also discusses feminism and the links between literature and hysteria, which I found a bit bizarre.

Overall it is a good and readable book, but does somewhat lack focus by covering a broad range of subjects in too little detail and by wandering off into unrela

ted areas.

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