Description
About the Author
Ana Antic is Lecturer in twentieth-century international history at the University of Exeter. She received her PhD from Columbia University, and subsequently worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, on the project Reluctant Internationalists: A History of Public Health and International Organisations, Movements and Experts in Twentieth Century Europe. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Europe and the Balkans, history of war and violence, and history of psychiatry. She has published in Social History of Medicine, Journal of Social History, History of Psychiatry, East European Politics and Societies, and a number of other journals.
Reviews
...This is an important and useful book: a comprehensive political analysis that deals even-handedly with all aspects of Serbia's war; it will be the key reference for students of the region and specialists of the Second World War alike. * John Paul Newman, Journal of Modern History *
Antic's central thesis is that war revolutionized Yugoslav psychiatry from both the right and the left ... Antic makes a convincing case for Yugoslav psychiatric exceptionalism. * Dusan I. Bjelic, Slavic Review *
Antic's book tells of the violence and trauma of the occupation at the level of the individual psyche, through 949 psychiatric case histories across varied hospital archives. The files unveil not only the psychological impact of wartime occupation, but also people's internal conflicts about the political events surrounding them. They offer a unique insight into class, gender and political allegiances, making a striking, original contribution to the social history of Yugoslavia [...] This book...serves as a robust vindication of the importance of bringing these patient stories to light; restoring an aspect of experience to the historical record, from actors who would not otherwise be given a voice. Indeed, Antic eloquently shows us that it is imperative to do so, to fully document and acknowledge the effects of wartime violence upon the psyche. * Sarah Marks, Social History of Medicine *
Antic has written a remarkably original case study in the psycho-social impacts of sustained exposure to violence, both on traumatized individuals and on the psychiatric professionals who treated them as patients. Relying on an unusually rich record of patient files and case notes from wartime and immediately postwar Yugoslavia, Antic opens an unexpected window onto the mental and affective experience of everyday life in conditions of war, occupation and regime change, while also demonstrating the significance of this period as a key transitional moment in the intellectual history of psychiatry. The study stands out for its deft balancing of the ideological, social and professional dynamics at work in this period, and offers us novel and compelling perspectives on Yugoslavia's social and political history. * Comments from the awards committee of the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History 2015 *
Awards
Winner of Joint winner of the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History 2015. Shortlisted for the 2017 Gladstone Prize of the Royal Historical Society..
Book Information
ISBN 9780198784586
Author Ana Antic
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 540g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 161mm * 20mm