A Heavy Reckoning : War, Medicine and Survival in Afghanistan and Beyond (Wellcome Collection) - Softcover

Emily Mayhew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781255865 ISBN 13: 9781781255865

Publisher: Wellcome Collection, 2018

Synopsis

What happens when you reach the threshold of life and death - and come back?

As long as humans have lived on the planet, there have been wars, and injured soldiers and civilians. But today, as we engage in wars with increasingly sophisticated technology, we are able to bring people back from ever closer encounters with death.

Historian Emily Mayhew explores the reality of medicine and injury in wartime, from the trenches of World War One to the plains of Afghanistan and the rehabilitation wards of Headley Court in Surrey. Mixing vivid and compelling stories of unexpected survival with astonishing insights from the front line of medicine, A Heavy Reckoning is a book about how far we have come in saving, healing and restoring the human body.

From the plastic surgeon battling to restore function to a blasted hand to the double amputee learning to walk again on prosthetic legs, Mayhew gives us a new understanding of the limits of human life and the extraordinary costs paid physically and mentally by casualties all over the world.

About this title

Review:

An outstanding study of medicine on the front line in Afghanistan and beyond. (The Sunday Times)

A riveting description of the journey from the battlefield through every stage of resuscitation to recovery back home. (Spectator)

A great book, compelling and hard hitting. A Heavy Reckoning is a crucial milestone in remembering the most important lesson learnt from recent conflict in Afghanistan (Harry Parker, author of Anatomy of a Soldier)

The most gripping non-fiction book I have read in a very long time (Mark Haddon)

Moving, thought provoking and informative, it is not one to be missed. (Soldier Magazine)

An extraordinary human story of resilience ... an outstanding study of a lamentably underreported aspect of modern warfare. (Sunday Times)

In her book, Emily Mayhew, a medical military historian who studies the history of severe casualty in warfare, describes all of this carnage in the most extraordinary, close-up detail and by the end you appreciate her for doing it - after all, why on earth would she spare us? (Mark Smith Scotland Herald)

Mayhew's book is a valuable contribution to the history of military medicine (Pete Starling British Society for the History of Medicine)

Mayhew is uniquely placed to tell this story, which flits between medical science and heart-thumping narrative. (Miles Amoore Literary Review)

Book Description:

No-holds-barred, powerful medical non-fiction from the bleeding edge of medicine and war: out now in paperback

About this edition

• Publisher: Wellcome Collection
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1781255865
• ISBN 13: 9781781255865
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320