The book succeeds in establishing Birkbeck as unique and with many special achievements. There are illustrations...There is a great deal to cover but reading it will certainly help convince anyone of its contribution to the world. In the chapter on teaching Bourke reminds us that the nature of the student cohorts meant lecturers had to be entertaining as well as knowledgeable. She has extended this approach to this impressive book.
Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the prize-winning author of books on multiple subjects, including histories of modern warfare, military medicine, psychology and psychiatry, the emotions, and rape. Among others, she is the author of An Intimate History of Killing (1999), Fear: A Cultural History (2005), Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present (2007), What it Means
to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present (2011), and The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers. An Intimate History of Killing won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize. She is also a frequent contributor to TV and radio shows, and a regular newspaper correspondent.