Integrating a variety of historical approaches and methods, Joanna Bourke looks at the construction of class within the intimate contexts of the body, the home, the marketplace, the locality and the nation to assess how the subjective identity of the 'working class' in Britain has been maintained through seventy years of radical social, cultural and economic change. She argues that class identity is essentially a social and cultural rather than an institutional or political phenomenon and therefore cannot be understood without constant reference to gender and ethnicity. Each self contained...

Integrating a variety of historical approaches and methods, this textbook looks at the construction of class within the intimate contexts of the body, the home, the marketplace, the locality and the nation, to assess how the subjective identity of the working class in Britain has been maintained through seventy years of radical social, cultural and economic change. Joanna Bourke argues that class identity is essentially a social and cultural, rather than an institutional or political phenomenon, and therefore cannot be understood without constant reference to gender and ethnicity.

The characteristic act of men at war is not dying, but killing. Politicians and military historians may gloss over human slaughter, emphasizing the defense of national honor, but for men in active service, warfare means being - or becoming - efficient killers. In An Intimate History of Killing, historian Joanna Bourke asks: What are the social and psychological dynamics of becoming the best "citizen soldiers?" What kind of men become the best killers? How do they readjust to civilian life?These questions are answered in this groundbreaking new work that won, while still in manuscript,...

Whether we like it or not, an atmosphere of fear pervades modern culture. In America, each day is color-coded for the level of threat; newspapers fill with gloomy news of climate crisis; and the radio and TV bleat with Amber alerts, car crashes, and the war wounded.

In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian Joanna Bourke helps us understand the landscape of fear we now navigate. Her review of the past two hundred years -- from diagnosed phobias to the media's role in creating new ones -- prompts strikingly original observations about the mind and worldview of the "long...

It has been contended that femininity was disrupted, constructed and reconstructed during World War I, but what happened to masculinity? Using the evidence of letters, diaries and oral histories of members of the military and of civilians, this book explores the impact of the Great War on the male body.

Joanna Bourke takes the issue of rape out of the academic ghettos and distills the truth so often exploited to sell newspapers. Neither prurient nor overly sympathetic toward any party, she investigates rape from a historical standpoint, examining the history of sexual aggression, the idea of rape as a social construct, and the often-ignored idea of embodiment, and analyzes the physical response of rapists as well as the theory that rape is "about" power.
Indebted to a growing body of sophisticated feminist analyses about rape victims, Bourke here shifts the emphasis from the victims to...

The story of pain and suffering since the eighteenth century. Prize-winning historian Joanna Bourke charts how our understanding of pain (and how to cope with it) has changed completely over the last three centuries.

In times of crisis, we often turn to artists for truth-telling and memory-keeping. There is no greater crisis than war, and in this sumptuously illustrated volume, we find a comprehensive visual, cultural, and historical account of the ways in which armed conflict has been represented by artists.

Covering the last two centuries, from the Crimean War to the present day, the book shows how the artistic portrayal of war has changed, from a celebration of heroic exploits to a more modern, troubled, and perhaps truthful depiction of warfare and its consequences. The book investigates broad...