Battle A History Of Combat And Culture Pdf
The dawn of modern psychiatryThe psychiatrist Pinel is often depicted as freeing the insane from their chains; in his treatise entitled Nosographie Philosophique (1798), he described the case of the philosopher Pascal who almost drowned in the Seine when the horses drawing his carriage bolted. During the remaining eight years of his life, Pascal had recurring dreams of a precipice on his left side and would place a chair there to prevent falling off his bed. His personality changed, and he became more apprehensive, scrupulous, withdrawn, and depressive. From his experience with patients shocked by the events and wars of the French Revolution, Pinel wrote the first precise descriptions of war neuroses - which he called “cardiorespiratory neurosis” - and acute stuporous posttraumatic states - which he called “idiotism.”The Industrial Revolution and the introduction of steamdriven machinery were to give rise to the first civilian man-made disasters and cases of PTSD outside the battlefield. The public's imagination was struck by the first spectacular railway disasters, and physicians at the time were puzzled by the psychological symptoms displayed by survivors. Very soon, a controversy pitted the proponents of the organic theory, according to which the mental symptoms were caused by microscopic lesions of the spine or brain (hence the names “railway spine” and “railway brain”), against those who held that emotional shock was the essential cause and that the symptoms were hysterical in nature. This controversy was to last until World War I.
- Battle A History Of Combat And Culture Pdf Printable
- Battle A History Of Combat And Culture Pdf Online
- Battle Culture Of Forbearance Definition
It seems that the first mention of the term “traumatic neurosis” dates from that time: it was the title given in 1884 by the German physician Hermann Oppenheim to his book containing a description of 42 cases caused by railway or workplace accidents. This new diagnosis was vehemently criticized by Charcot who maintained that these cases were only forms of hysteria, neurasthenia, or hystero-neurasthenia. After Charcot's death in 1893, the term traumatic neurosis made its way into French-language psychiatry: witness the Belgian psychiatrist Jean Crocq who in 1896 reported 28 cases caused by railway accidents. It is at the time of Charcot's famous Tuesday's lectures that Janet (1889) and Freud (1893) discovered traumatic hysteria with all its correlates: the dissociation caused by trauma, the pathogenic role of forgotten memories, and “cathartic” treatment. This was a first glimpse of what would later be known as the unconscious.The Russian-Japanese war (1904-5) was marked by the siege of Port Arthur and the naval battle of Tsushima.
It was probably during this conflict that post-battle psychiatric symptoms were recognized for the first time as such by both doctors and military command. Russian psychiatrists - notably Avtocratov, who was in charge of a 50-bed psychiatric clearing hospital at Harbin in Manchuria - are credited with being the first to develop forward psychiatric treatment. This approach may have been a response to the difficulty of evacuating casualties over huge distances at a time when the Trans-Siberian Railway was not yet completed. Whatever the initial reason, forward treatment worked, and would again be confirmed as the best method during succeeding conflicts. The number of Russian psychiatric casualties was much larger than expected (1500 in 1904 and 2000 in 1905) and the Red Cross Society of Russia was asked to assist. The German physician Honigman served in this body, and he was the first to coin the term “war neurosis” Kriegsneurose in 1907 for what was previously called “combat hysteria” and “combat neurasthenia”; also, he stressed the similarity between these cases and those reported by Oppenheim after railway accidents. World War IWorld War I (WWI) was the first modern war fought with massive industrial means.
This dubious distinction is also, to a lesser degree, shared by the American Civil War. In any event, WWI is certainly the period in history when “modern” warfare coincided with a “scientific” psychiatry that endeavored to define diagnostic entities as we understand them today.
The role played by WWI in advancing the knowledge of psychotraumatology in European psychiatry may be compared to that of WWII and the Vietnam War in American psychiatry.The mental distress of WWI soldiers was repeatedly described in literary autobiographies by English, German, and French authors such as Robert Graves ( Goodbye to All That, 1929), Ernst Junger ( In Stahlgewittern Storm of Steel, 1920), or Henri Barbusse ( Le Feu, 1916). J linger wrote: “The state takes away our responsibility but cannot ease our grief, we have to carry it alone and it reaches deep within our dreams.”. Forward treatmentIndeed, the experience of the first war months and the unexpected large influx of psychiatric casualties led to a change in treatment approaches. The evacuation of psychiatric casualties to the rear became less systematic as the experience of the remaining war years convinced psychiatrists that treatment should be carried out near the frontline, and that evacuation only led to chronic disability. It was noticed that soldiers treated in a frontline hospital, benefiting from the emotional support of their comrades, had a high likelihood of returning to their unit, whereas those who were evacuated often showed a poor prognosis, with chronic symptoms that ultimately led to discharge from the military. Also, it was discovered that prognosis was better if the convalescing soldiers remained in the setting of the military hierarchy, rather than in a more relaxed hospital environment.
Thus, by the end of 1916, evacuations became rare and patients were treated instead in forward centers, staffed by noncommissioned officers (NCOs), within hearing distance of the frontline guns and with the expectation of prompt recovery. Treatment in the forward area (psychiatrie de l'avant) became the standard treatment, along with the five key principles summarized in 1917 by the American physician Thomas W. Salmon, chief consultant in psychiatry with the American Expeditionary Forces in France: immediacy, proximity, expectancy, simplicity, and centrality. Concussion, fright, or malingering?Etiology was a controversial question that was reflected by the choice of terms: shell shock or war neurosis? Soma or psyche? The now obsolete term shell shock, harking back to the vent du boulet of the Napoleonic wars, implied a somatic etiology, such as microscopic brain lesions due to a vascular, meningeal, white or gray matter concussion. Other diagnoses were also used to express the belief that the cause was more an emotional stressor, rather that a physical concussion.
Such diagnoses were, for instance, war neurasthenia and war psychoneurosis, in France.Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), without doubt one of the most influential psychiatrists of our times, wrote about his experience with war neuroses during WWI in his autobiography, published posthumously in German in 1983:As early as 1917, the question of war neuroses was raised. We alienists all agreed that we should try to limit an excessively liberal granting of compensations which might lead to a sharp rise in the number of cases and claims. The fact that all kinds of more or less severe psychiatric symptoms could lead to a lengthy stay in a hospital, or even to a discharge from the military with a generous disability pension, had disastrous consequences. This was compounded by the population's feeling of pity for the seemingly severely ill “war-shakers” Kriegszilterer, who drew attention to themselves on street corners and used to be generously rewarded. In such circumstances, the number of those who believed that a “nervous shock,” or, especially, having been buried alive, entitled them to discharge and continuous support, increased dramatically.Kraepelin's comments typify the controversies that raged at the time: (i) were the mental symptoms nothing more than malingering, with the clear objective of getting away from the frontline?
Some 346 British and Commonwealth soldiers were actually shot on the orders of military command and this number certainly included soldiers suffering from acute stress disorder who walked around dazed or confused and were accused of desertion or cowardice; (ii) Did posttraumatic symptoms have pathoanatomical explanations? For instance, were they produced by a concussion of the brain or strained nerve fibers, as had been hypothesized in previous decades for the “railway spine” resulting from train accidents? (iii) A third explanation was a psychological origin - in that case, was the psychological cause limited to the overwhelming fright constituting the trauma, or was it necessary to delve further into the patient's previous personality? The cases of war neurosis observed during WWI were indeed a challenge to psychoanalytical theories; it was simply unbelievable that all cases were caused by childhood traumas and it had to be admitted that psychological symptoms could be produced by recent traumas. Freud had postulated that dreams were a wish fulfillment. Not until 1920, in an address at an international congress of psychoanalysts, did he allow one exception: the case of traumatic dreams, dreams that recall recent accidents or childhood traumas.
And even this turned out to bc no real exception at all: Freud eventually understood traumatic dreams as fitting into his wish-fulfillment theory of dreams in that they embodied the wish to master the trauma by working it through. World War IIA dreadful invention of WWII was the concept “total war,” with the systematic targeting of civilian populations, as exemplified by the millions of deaths caused by the Holocaust, the air raids on cities to break the morale of civilian populations, and the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite WWI, most armies were once again unprepared for the great number of psychiatric casualties and psychiatrists were often viewed as a useless burden, as exemplified by a memorandum addressed by Winston Churchill to the Lord President of the Council in December, 1942, in the following terms17:I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen psychologists and psychiatrists. It is very wrong to disturb large numbers of healthy normal men and women by asking the kind of odd questions in which the psychiatrists specialize. A merican psychiatryAmerican psychiatrists made a major contribution to the study of combat psychiatry during WWII. In Psychiatry in a Troubled World, William C.
Menninger shows how the lessons of WWI seemed at first to have been entirely forgotten by the American military: “during the initial battles in Africa, psychiatric casualties were sent back to base hospitals, often hundreds of miles from the front. Only 5% of these were able to return to duty“ As explained by Jones, American planners, under the guidance of Harry Stack Sullivan, had believed that potential psychiatric casualties could be screened out prior to being drafted. Correspondingly, no psychiatrists were assigned to combat divisions and no provision for special psychiatric treatment units at the field army level or communications zone had been made.
The principles of forward treatment were rediscovered during the North Africa campaign in 1943. Advised by the psychiatrist Frederick Hanson, Omar N. Bradley issued a directive on 26 April 1943, which established a holding period of 7 days for psychiatric patients at the 9th Evacuation Hospital, and for the first time the term ”exhaustion“ was prescribed as initial diagnosis for all combat psychiatric cases. This word was chosen because it was thought to convey the least implication of neuropsychiatrie disturbance. Beginning in 1943, treatment in the forward area similar to that in WWI was the rule, with the result that between 50% to 70% of psychiatric casualties were able to return to duty. Here again, the sheer number of psychiatric casualties was staggering.
For the total overseas forces in 1944, admissions for wounded numbered approximately 86 per 1000 men per year, and the neuropsychiatrie rate was 43 per 1000 per year.In 1941, the first year of the war for the United States, Abram Kardiner - famous for having been analyzed by Freud himself - published a book based on his treatment of WWI veterans at Veterans Hospital No. 81 between 1922 and 1925.
In the light of the experience with WWII soldiers, Kardiner published a revised edition of his book at the end of the war. He wrote that ”the real lesson of WWI and the chronic cases was that this syndrome must be treated immediately to prevent consolidation of the neurosis into its chronic and often intractable forms.“ He identified traumatic neurosis as a ”physioneurosis,“ thereby stressing the concomitance of somatic and psychological symptoms. Kardiner developed his own concept of the ”effective ego“ and he postulated that ”ego contraction“ was a major mechanism. Posttraumatic psychiatric symptoms in military personnel fighting in WWII were reported as early as 1945 by the American psychiatrists Grinker and Spiegel. Jheir book - Men under Stress - is an excellent reflection of psychiatric thinking of the time; it remained a classic treatise on war psychiatry because of its detailed description of 65 clinical cases, its reference to psychoanalytical theories, and the description of cathartic treatment by “narcosynthesis” using barbiturates. Grinker and Spiegel distinguished acute “reactions to combat” from delayed “reactions after combat.” The latter included “war neuroses,” designated by the euphemism “operational fatigue” syndrome in the Air Force.
Other chronic consequences of combat included passive-dependent states, psychosomatic states, guilt and depression, aggressive and hostile reactions, and psychotic-like states. European studiesLong-lasting psychological disorders were not tolerated in the German military during WWII, and official doctrine held that it was more important to eliminate weak or degenerate elements rather than allow them to poison the national community. Interviews we conducted with Alsatian veterans who had been forcibly drafted into the Wehrmacht taught us that soldiers who had suffered acute combat stress (such as being buried under a bunker hit by a bomb) were given some form of psychological assistance soon after rescue; they were typically sent to a forward area first aid station (Verbandsplatz) where they received milk and chocolate and were allowed to rest. The Soviet army evolved its own system of forward treatment, under the responsibility of the unit's political (ie, morale) officer.
A look at the textbook of psychiatry published by Gurevich and Sereyskiy in Moscow immediately after the war in 1946, at the height of Stalin's power, shows the existence of a specific diagnostic label to classify posttraumatic disorders. The authors describe the “affective shock reactions” (affeklivno-shokovye reaktsii), a subtype of psychogenic reactions, that are observed after wartime events, earthquakes, or railway accidents; these are characterized by acute (a few days) and subchronic (a few months) symptoms. These Russian authors tended to emphasize cardiovascular and vasomotor symptoms, which reminds us of Da Costa's “irritable heart” in American Civil War soldiers. The literature on Holocaust and concentration camp survivors is too abundant to be summarized here. The best known of all the early works studying concentration camp survivors is probably the article published by Eitinger.In contrast to WWI, the course of symptoms over decades and their chronic nature were extensively studied in WWII survivors.
For instance, in 1988, we studied a group of French civilians living in the AlsaceLorraine region who were conscripted into the German army and later held in captivity in Russia. This population of Alsace-Lorraine was interesting because it was bilingual, French and German, and had cultural roots in both heritages. The analysis of 525 questionnaires showed that, after over four decades, 82% still experienced intrusive recollections and nightmares of their wartime captivity; 73% actively attempted to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma; 71% reported a foreshortened sense of the future; and nearly 40% reported survivor guilt.
Beyond PTSD, these survivors from Alsace-Lorraine also suffered lasting personality changes. We believe that an aggravating factor was the fact that these individuals returned home uncelebrated, embittered, psychologically isolated, and that they were caught in a web of psychological ambiguity. They had fought in the German army against their will and under the threat of their families being deported, and were considered unreliable by the Germans. They were surprised to be treated as German soldiers upon their capture by the Soviet army.
They were repatriated to a new post-war social environment in a French society that was itself plagued by the guilt of its early surrender to the Nazis, and they felt misunderstood by some of their countrymen who criticized their incorporation into the German military as a form of treason. The Vietnam warDuring the Vietnam war, the principles of treating psychiatric casualties in the forward area were successfully applied, with a correspondingly low level of acute psychiatric casualties (11.5 per 1000 men per year).
In contrast, the incidence of alcoholism and drug abuse was high. Similarly, the late and delayed effects of combat exposure in the form of PTSD were a significant source of suffering and disability among veterans in the United States. An estimated 700 000 Vietnam veterans - almost a quarter of all soldiers sent to Vietnam from 1964 to 1973 - required some form of psychological help. The prevalence of delayed and chronic PTSD, in spite of the careful prevention of psychiatric casualties in Vietnam itself, was a rude awakening. Trying to explain this paradox called for new hypotheses, for instance, that PTSD might be a common form of psychiatric casualty in “low-level“ warfare.
Battle A History Of Combat And Culture Pdf Printable
Similar profiles had been observed in the French post-colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria. This post- Vietnam syndrome, increasingly diagnosed in veterans in the seventies, ultimately led to the adoption of PTSD as a diagnostic category in 1980 in DSM-III. It seems puzzling that no such category existed in DSM-II, which had even abandoned the former DSM-'I category of so-called ”gross stress reaction,“ when it was published in 1968, the year of the Communist Jet Offensive in Vietnam. RetrospectThere is currently a measure of consensus on the diagnosis and phenomenological description of PTSD, which is recognized as a specific syndrome in individuals who have experienced a major traumatic event. Most modem textbooks concur in describing this syndrome as comprising three groups of symptoms: (i) the recurrent and distressing reexperiencing of the event in dreams, thoughts, or flashbacks; (ii) emotional numbing and avoidance of stimuli reminiscent of the trauma; (iii) and a permanent state of increased arousal. The first symptoms of PTSD are often delayed and they are separated from the trauma by a latency period; however, once installed, the disorder tends to follow a chronic course and the symptoms do not abate with time.
DSM-IV has the merit of clearly distinguishing PTSD, a chronic syndrome, from acute stress disorder, which is short-lived and appears soon after the trauma. We tend to abusively interpret the literature of previous decades as if today's diagnostic categories had always existed.
However, a clear distinction between acute stress disorder and chronic PTSD is usually lacking in previous works. Also, there was little attempt to predict the risk of developing PTSD.
Apogee psx 100 special edition. Providing the trauma is severe enough, most individuals will go on to develop PTSD. However, one puzzling question is that many survivors seemingly do not develop symptoms even after a severe stressor. Likewise, the historical literature on PTSD offers few clues concerning effective treatment, once the symptoms have become chronic. Jhe practice of forward treatment aiming to prevent the development of chronic disorders may have inspired today's psychological debriefing of disaster victims.
Battle: A History of Combat and Culture spans the globe and the centuries to explore the way ideas shape the conduct of warfare. Drawing its examples from Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and America, John A. Lynn challenges the belief that technology has been the dominant influence on combat from ancient times to the present day. In battle, ideas can be mor Battle: A History of Combat and Culture spans the globe and the centuries to explore the way ideas shape the conduct of warfare. Drawing its examples from Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and America, John A.
Lynn challenges the belief that technology has been the dominant influence on combat from ancient times to the present day. In battle, ideas can be more far more important than bullets or bombs. Carl von Clausewitz proclaimed that war is politics, but even more basically, war is culture. The hard reality of armed conflict is formed by - and, in turn, forms - a culture's values, assumptions, and expectations about fighting.
The author examines the relationship between the real and the ideal, arguing that feedback between the two follows certain discernable paths. Battle rejects the currently fashionable notion of a 'Western way of warfare' and replaces it with more nuanced concepts of varied and evolving cultural patterns of combat. After considering history, Lynn finally asks how the knowledge gained might illuminate our understanding of the war on terrorism. I found John Lynn's book to be a refreshing riposte to Victor Davis Hanson's 'Carnage and Culture'.
This is primarily due to the fact that I found Hanson's arguments to be too reductivist, and not sufficiently explanatory of changing cultural values. Besides reminding one uncomfortably of cultural elistism, a 'Western Way of War' was too simple to explain dominance, and couldn't even begin address the numerous counter-examples that bedevil the supposed hegemonic dominance of 'democratic' 'citize I found John Lynn's book to be a refreshing riposte to Victor Davis Hanson's 'Carnage and Culture'.
This is primarily due to the fact that I found Hanson's arguments to be too reductivist, and not sufficiently explanatory of changing cultural values. Besides reminding one uncomfortably of cultural elistism, a 'Western Way of War' was too simple to explain dominance, and couldn't even begin address the numerous counter-examples that bedevil the supposed hegemonic dominance of 'democratic' 'citizen soldiers'.Lynn argues for a different model, wherein a culture's conception of warfare is modified and informed by the practice of warfare. This book has had both supporters and detractors. Lynn's purpose is to overturn the idea of the western way of war as proposed and supported by Victor Davis Hanson and John Keegan. I have enjoyed the works of both these authors but Lynn's examples are clear and hard to argue with. Professor Lynn is extremely well respected in the academic community but his style of writing is not difficult to follow for lay people and those who have been lucky enough to take one of his classes will recognize man This book has had both supporters and detractors.
Lynn's purpose is to overturn the idea of the western way of war as proposed and supported by Victor Davis Hanson and John Keegan. I have enjoyed the works of both these authors but Lynn's examples are clear and hard to argue with. Professor Lynn is extremely well respected in the academic community but his style of writing is not difficult to follow for lay people and those who have been lucky enough to take one of his classes will recognize many of the themes.
The one issue that might cause detractors to disparage the work is that Lynn does not put forth an alternative to the Western way of war hypothesis, he just argues against it. I believe this is because effective militaries adapt and the construction of a western or eastern manner of warfare is articificial. This book is about all the wars that have been recorded over centuries.
Battle A History Of Combat And Culture Pdf Online
It talkes about the different tactics and strategies that each side of a war adopted over time. It allows you to look closely into traditions of certain people and how these traditions affected them in battle. This book also goes more into the psychology of war which is very interesting.I really enjoyed reading this book, because even though it is nonfiction and pretty thick, i did't feel like i was reading a textbook, whi This book is about all the wars that have been recorded over centuries.
It talkes about the different tactics and strategies that each side of a war adopted over time. It allows you to look closely into traditions of certain people and how these traditions affected them in battle. This book also goes more into the psychology of war which is very interesting.I really enjoyed reading this book, because even though it is nonfiction and pretty thick, i did't feel like i was reading a textbook, which usually happens. I really learned a lot and i think it was worth reading it. I think if someone else were to read this book you would have to know a lot about historical events and people. If you don't it's okay, i didn't know everything.
Somewhat insightful, I had hoped more would be delved into about the culture itself, not only its direct or indirect connection to military activity and discourse, but most of the subjects covered within were primarily directed at ideals of combat and the difference in the actual reality of wars. Perhaps a little more could've been looked at as far as the reach of technology goes in affecting the changes in ideals, but it seems more focused on the combatants themselves, with culture being the bi Somewhat insightful, I had hoped more would be delved into about the culture itself, not only its direct or indirect connection to military activity and discourse, but most of the subjects covered within were primarily directed at ideals of combat and the difference in the actual reality of wars. Perhaps a little more could've been looked at as far as the reach of technology goes in affecting the changes in ideals, but it seems more focused on the combatants themselves, with culture being the big difference that sets one group apart from another. I'd of also liked it better if more eras had been covered, feudal Japan, Cold War Russia (wars of words and subterfuge), etc. Fantastic concept: 'the cultural study of war'. The cultural factors in war - how and why ideas and battle-habits are distinctive to each culture. The essays themselves managed to bore me from time to time.Both Azar Gat and John Keegan, in their universal histories of war, upset me, in my area, by not having the cultural knowledge they need to write about steppe warfare (with hideous results).
So I can see, history of war must be culture-specific - as much as other history. Lynn gives y Fantastic concept: 'the cultural study of war'.
The cultural factors in war - how and why ideas and battle-habits are distinctive to each culture. The essays themselves managed to bore me from time to time.Both Azar Gat and John Keegan, in their universal histories of war, upset me, in my area, by not having the cultural knowledge they need to write about steppe warfare (with hideous results). So I can see, history of war must be culture-specific - as much as other history. Lynn gives you the argument why, with examples: essays on war in different times and societies, and how that culture shaped ideas and practice.
How warfare changes over time because of culture, not just technology. In broad sweeps quite persuasive (I found the chapters on chivalry and linear warfare particularly interesting), though in some cases I wish he was more specific about where these cultural traits come from and how they translate into military behavior.
I also wish that he had been been snarkier to Victor Davis Hanson while trashing his thesis that the West took over the world because Greek hoplites are awesome and the Orienta How warfare changes over time because of culture, not just technology. In broad sweeps quite persuasive (I found the chapters on chivalry and linear warfare particularly interesting), though in some cases I wish he was more specific about where these cultural traits come from and how they translate into military behavior. I also wish that he had been been snarkier to Victor Davis Hanson while trashing his thesis that the West took over the world because Greek hoplites are awesome and the Orientals are all sneaky, though I can hardly fault this guy for being polite. John Albert Lynn is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a visiting professor at Northwestern University, Evanston. He received his Ph.D.
Battle Culture Of Forbearance Definition
From the University of California, Los Angeles. Although he specializes in the military history of France from the early modern period through the revolution, he has taught classes spanning the entire range of milit John Albert Lynn is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a visiting professor at Northwestern University, Evanston. He received his Ph.D. From the University of California, Los Angeles. Although he specializes in the military history of France from the early modern period through the revolution, he has taught classes spanning the entire range of military history, including classes on the military history of south Asia.