Roger Cooter - Böcker

A noted medical historian explores the roles played by various intellectual frameworks and trends in the writing of historyA collection of ten essays paired with substantial prefaces, this book chronicles and contextualizes Roger Cooter’s contributions to the history of medicine. Through an analysis of his own work, Cooter critically examines the politics of conceptual and methodological shifts in historiography. In particular, he examines the “double bind” of postmodernism and biological or neurological modeling that, together, threaten academic history. To counteract this trend, suggests Cooter, historians must begin actively locating themselves in the problems they consider.The essays and commentaries constitute a kind of contour map of history’s recent trends and trajectories—its points of passage to the present—and lead both to a critical account of the discipline’s historiography and to an examination of the role of intellectual frameworks and epistemic virtues in the writing of history.

A collection of essays focused largely on the nineteenth-century, illuminating a period when the medical market was highly differentiated and in the face of orthodox medicine only being regarded as "professional", dissent was rife. Historians and experts in particular fields explore aspects of the organization and expression of this dissent in various local and national contexts from the point of view of the history of the society, economics, mentalities, politics, philosophy, religion and literary culture. The author also wrote "The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science".

Recent revelations of child abuse have highlighted the need for understanding the historical background to current attitudes towards child health and welfare. In the Name of the Child explores a variety of professional, social, political and cultural constructions of the child in the decades around the First World War. It describes how medical and welfare initiatives in the name of the child were shaped and how changes in medical and welfare provisions were closely allied to political and ideological interests.

The popular nineteenth-century science of phrenology has attracted a great deal of recent scholarly interest. What was once seen as a rather curious and eccentric practice, is now becoming recognised as one of the most significant social and intellectual manifestations of the nineteenth century. Extending an influence to virtually every aspect of life, thought and belief, it is regarded as having contributed instrumentally to developments in anthropology, criminology, medicine, psychiatry, and education.This unique set draws together a wealth of material crucial to the intellectual debate over phrenology, both as a branch of mental physiology and as a contribution to the history of philosophy. The articles selected represent the variety of different views throughout the nineteenth century, both pro and anti-phrenology.

During the twentieth century, medicine has been radically transformed and powerfully transformative. In 1900, western medicine was important to philanthropy and public health, but it was marginal to the state, the industrial economy and the welfare of most individuals. It is now central to these aspects of life. Our prospects seem increasingly dependent on the progress of bio-medical sciences and genetic technologies which promise to reshape future generations.The editors of Medicine in the Twentieth Century have commissioned over forty authoritative essays, written by historical specialists but intended for general audiences. Some concentrate on the political economy of medicine and health as it changed from period to period and varied between countries, others focus on understandings of the body, and a third set of essays explores transformations in some of the theatres of medicine and the changing experiences of different categories of practitioners and patients.

In the Name of the Child explores a variety of professional, social, political and cultural constructions of the child in the crucial decades around the First World War when modern notions of `the child' were elaborated and widely institutionalised.In essays specially written for the book, the contributors describe how medical and welfare initiatives in the name of the child were shaped and how changes in medical and welfare provision were allied to political and ideological interests. Chapters concentrate on the medical invasion of schools, the use of children for medical experiments in American orphanages, how medical intervention gave new priorities in health care, and the construction of child abuse before 1914. Taken as a whole, the book shows clearly how wider moral, political, class and gender interests were imposed on children.The essays bridge the gap between traditional histories of medicine and welfare, and the social, intellectual and cultural history of childhood. They lay the foundation for understanding contemporary conflicts and concerns about the child, and will appeal not only to those interested in childhood studies and in the history of medicine, psychology, social policy and welfare, but also to students of the culture of modernisation between the 1880s and 1940s.

This study of the popularity of phrenology in the second quarter of the nineteenth century concentrates on the social and ideological functions of science during the consolidation of urban industrial society. It is influenced by Foucault, by recent work in the history and sociology of science, by critical theory, and by cultural anthropology. The author analyses the impact of science on Victorian society across a spectrum from the intellectual establishment to working-class freethinkers and Owenite socialists. In doing so he provides the first extended treatment of the place and role of science among working-class radicals. The book also challenges attempts to establish neat demarcations between scientific ideas and their philosophical, theological and social contexts.

During the twentieth century, medicine has been radically transformed and powerfully transformative. In 1900, western medicine was important to philanthropy and public health, but it was marginal to the state, the industrial economy and the welfare of most individuals. It is now central to these aspects of life. Our prospects seem increasingly dependent on the progress of bio-medical sciences and genetic technologies which promise to reshape future generations.The editors of Medicine in the Twentieth Century have commissioned over forty authoritative essays, written by historical specialists but intended for general audiences. Some concentrate on the political economy of medicine and health as it changed from period to period and varied between countries, others focus on understandings of the body, and a third set of essays explores transformations in some of the theatres of medicine and the changing experiences of different categories of practitioners and patients.

The history of medicine has been a robust field of academic inquiry and popular discussion since the 1970s. The interest in it goes back much further, but it was then that it began to link up with social protest and the counter-culture movement, and with feminist politics in particular. Medicine was seen as a part of ‘the Establishment’, perceived to be anti-democratic and paternalistic. The blossoming of the social history of medicine was launched on this agenda, focusing on the historically disenfranchised: the mad, women, the disabled, ‘unorthodox’ healers, social medicine, and so on. The field expanded in the 1980s and 90s with a shift from ‘the social’ to the ‘the cultural history of medicine’, connecting it to an abiding interest in ‘the body’. The centrality of medicine and the body to the work of Michel Foucault was a part of that move. Today, interest is sustained through the politics of biomedicine (including bioethics, and the turn to the ‘neuro’), which render it one of the most vibrant areas in the academy and one of the most topical in popular culture.

During the twentieth century, medicine has been radically transformed and powerfully transformative. In 1900, western medicine was important to philanthropy and public health, but it was marginal to the state, the industrial economy and the welfare of most individuals. It is now central to these aspects of life. Our prospects seem increasingly dependent on the progress of bio-medical sciences and genetic technologies which promise to reshape future generations.The editors of Medicine in the Twentieth Century have commissioned over forty authoritative essays, written by historical specialists but intended for general audiences. Some concentrate on the political economy of medicine and health as it changed from period to period and varied between countries, others focus on understandings of the body, and a third set of essays explores transformations in some of the theatres of medicine and the changing experiences of different categories of practitioners and patients.

How has our understanding of medicine evolved over the past 2,500 years? A Cultural History of Medicine, as the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the cultural history of medicine from ancient times to modernity, discusses this. With six highly illustrated volumes covering 2500 years of human history, this is the definitive reference work on the subject.Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one volume, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. The six volumes cover: 1. - Antiquity (500BCE - 800 CE); 2. - Middle Ages (800 - 1450); 3. - Renaissance (1450 - 1650); 4. - Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. - Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6. - Modern Age (1920 - 2000+).Themes (and chapter titles) are: environment; food; disease; animals; objects; experiences; the mind; authority. The page extent for the pack is approximately 1,728 pp with c. 240 b/w illustrations. Each volume opens with notes on contributors and an introduction and concludes with notes, bibliography, and an index.The Cultural Histories SeriesA Cultural History of Medicine is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

After years at the margins of medical history, the relationship between war and medicine is at last beginning to move centre-stage. The essays in this volume focus on one important aspect of that relationship: the practice and development of medicine within the armed forces from the late nineteenth century through to the end of the Second World War. During this crucial period, medicine came to occupy an important position in military life, especially during the two world wars when manpower was at a premium. Good medical provisions were vital to the conservation of manpower, protecting servicemen from disease and returning the sick and wounded to duty in the shortest possible time. A detailed knowledge of the serviceman's mind and body enabled the authorities to calculate and standardise rations, training and disciplinary procedures.Spanning the laboratory and the battlefield, and covering a range of national contexts, the essays in this volume provide valuable insights into different national styles and priorities. They also examine the relationship between medical personnel and the armed forces as a whole, by looking at such matters as the prevention of disease, the treatment of psychiatric casualties and the development of medical science. The volume as a whole demonstrates that medicine became an increasingly important part of military life in the era of modern warfare, and suggests new avenues and approaches for future study.