Knowing Pain: A History of Sensation, Emotion, and Experience

Pain, while known to almost everyone, is not universal. The evidence of our own pain, and our own experience, does not provide us with automatic insight into the pains of others, past or present. No matter how self-evident and ubiquitous the sting of a paper cut or the desolation of heartbreak might seem, pain is situated and historically specific.

In a work that is sometimes personal, always political, Rob Boddice reveals a history of pain that juggles many disciplinary approaches and disp...