The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World 1st Edition by Elaine Scarry (PDF)

Description

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces–literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious–that confront it.Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.Scarry begins with the fact of pain’s inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words–confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, “language runs dry”–it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of “unmaking” Scarry turns finally to the actions of “making”–the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I was required to read a section of this book for a Biomedical Ethics class in college. It is incredibly thick and academic. But every message is valuable. Later in life, I decided to read it cover to cover, it took me an inordinate amount of time to read this book. It is incredibly difficult, I often found myself spending minutes reading and rereading a page, or even a paragraph. But this was the most valuable book I have ever read.This book changed my life. I recall many of its lessons on a daily basis.

⭐Very interesting subject on what pain can make a human being go through and endure

⭐A heavy read but working my way through it… suggested by a friend so will wade onin the deep end

⭐A must for any person working with their own chronic pain, or caretakers, as well as an educated resource for your literature review.

⭐What an odd and wonderful book! It attempts to address three topics — pain/torture, warfare, and creativity. On the subject of pain/torture it is remarkably acute. The description of what pain is and what it does to consciousness and life’s enjoyment is terrific and, in my experience, unprecedented. Similarly, its description of torture and what torture means is stunning in its immediacy. However, when it goes from torture to warfare, the book goes off the rails. It is clear that Ms Scarry has a limited knowledge of warfare and a very limited understanding of what it means and how it is carried out. Warfare is usually a last resort and often involves activity by those who are free against those who are trying to create and perpetuate some form of slavery. (see the work of Victor Davis Hanson, e.g., The Soul of Battle.) This applies whether the war is conventional or nuclear. Her idea that taking the process of war to the civilian population is somehow a function of nuclear war is simply wrong. This approach to war is thousands of years old and, as Hanson points out, important and — in some contexts — virtuous. War is a horror, but it is better than slavery, torture, or conquest plus annihilation. Scarry doesn’t address this. This book makes the experience of pain clear, but offers a wooly and uncertain explanation of war. Its Marxist approach to creativity is shallow and forgettable.

⭐Great Product! Great Price!! Great Service!!!

⭐one of my top five books, that i have ever read.

⭐book arrived damaged- that is why we need booskhops

⭐Fascinating read, even if he prose is at times a bit dense and the style of argument somewhat over detailed.

⭐Brilliant

⭐Da meine geliebte Uni dieses Buch leider nicht im E-Book-Bestand hat, musste ich es mir “leider” selbst kaufen, da ich es für eine Hausarbeit benötigt habe. Ich muss sagen – das Buch ist wirklich top! Es wurde uns von unserer Professorin empfohlen für den Studiengang Soziologie und es ist wirklich eine herausragende Literatur. Würde es immer wieder kaufen, da es mir auch bestimmt bei anderen Hausarbeiten thematisch helfen kann. Ansonsten sind die Buchseiten – wie man es eben von englischen Büchern gewohnt ist – extrem dünn. Gerade in wissenschaftlichen Büchern markiere ich mir aber gerne Dinge. Dies ist hier nicht möglich, ohne die Folgeseite unlesbar zu machen. Daher gibt es einen Stern Abzug.Incredible work.

⭐great book! fast shipping

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