Great pains to define trauma: Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman: The empire of trauma: an inquiry into the condition of victimhood. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007, pp. 304, US $65.00 HB, $24.95 PB

Metascience (2010) 19:501503 DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9387-2

BOOK REVIEW

Great pains to dene trauma

Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman: The empire of trauma:an inquiry into the condition of victimhood. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007, pp. 304, US $65.00 HB, $24.95 PB

Shameran Slewa-Younan

Published online: 11 March 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Authors Fassin and Rechtman unravel the ways in which trauma has become a shared truth of our contemporary worlda term for describing both individual psychological impact and a wound in collective memory. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood is a study of the historical journey of the concept of trauma and those affected by it. Commencing in the 19th century, Dider Fassin and Richard Rechtman, two leading French scholars, guide us through the complex historical and political developments surrounding the concept of trauma by superimposing the lenses of anthropology, psychiatry and sociology to examine how this concept arrived at its current meaning and signicance in present day society.

The book is the result of the study carried out by the authors from 2000 to 2005. Seeking to denaturalise and to contextualise the concept of trauma and to highlight the political implications of being labelled a trauma victim, Fassin and Rechtman consulted medical archives and other written sources, and interviewed individuals working for various organisations, including those concerned with the provision of humanitarian psychiatry in the aftermath of a number of natural and man-made disasters. The discussions in the book have a particular focus on the French context and the French frontiers, which for this reviewer, offers a refreshing perspective from the majority of discussions on the psychiatry and socialisation of trauma encountered in English speaking countries. This reminds us that the psychological consequences of trauma and societal responses to victims of trauma are not neatly conned by the denition of trauma in English-speaking countries or even by the denition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The book is structured into four parts, with ten chapters in total. In Part One, The reversing of the truth, the authors trace the origins of trauma reporting on its

S. Slewa-Younan (&)

School of Medicine,...