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Bezig met laden... Exhaustion: A Historydoor Anna K. Schaffner
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  soulforged | Jan 7, 2024 |  geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Today our fatigue feels chronic; our anxieties, amplified. Proliferating technologies command our attention. Many people complain of burnout, and economic instability and the threat of ecological catastrophe fill us with dread. We look to the past, imagining life to have once been simpler and slower, but extreme mental and physical stress is not a modern syndrome. Beginning in classical antiquity, this book demonstrates how exhaustion has always been with us and helps us evaluate more critically the narratives we tell ourselves about the phenomenon.Medical, cultural, literary, and biographical sources have cast exhaustion as a biochemical imbalance, a somatic ailment, a viral disease, and a spiritual failing. It has been linked to loss, the alignment of the planets, a perverse desire for death, and social and economic disruption. Pathologized, demonized, sexualized, and even weaponized, exhaustion unites the mind with the body and society in such a way that we attach larger questions of agency, willpower, and well-being to its symptoms. Mapping these political, ideological, and creative currents across centuries of human development, Exhaustion finds in our struggle to overcome weariness a more significant effort to master ourselves. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)152.1Philosophy and Psychology Psychology Emotions And Senses SensesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (4)
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I appreciated the discussion of exhaustion in a historical and literary context, and was going to give this book five stars, until the part about ME. I'm no expert on the illness, but I felt that it was discussed in a rather dismissive tone. The stated purpose of the author was to describe types of exhaustion that aren't caused by a specific physical health issue, so the inclusion of chronic fatigue syndrome had problematic implications.
While there were many allusions to classic literature and philosophy, the book lacked the voices of contemporary suffers of conditions that can cause exhaustion. There was no mention of spoon theory, a concept which is surprisingly similar to Beard's nervous bankruptcy. I've often thought that there is nothing intuitive about using spoons as a measure of energy as opposed to say, batteries, but it's relatively timeless compared to the specific metaphors used in other eras.
Overall, I think this book would have been an excellent cultural history of exhaustion and depression up until the mid-twentieth century. The discussion of current manifestations of those conditions would have been better expanded or omitted. (