Extract
This is an extraordinary book. Should anyone be misled by the title of ‘history’, this is no narrative constrained by temporal development. Nor is it an updated version of Roselyne Rey’s work on the history of pain. Boddice’s attempt at ‘knowing pain’ encompasses almost the entire spectrum of pain and its derivatives. This is an ambitious project, and like all innovative and ambitious projects, it is easy to pick faults in it. But this is not my aim. This book should be evaluated for its strength and contributions, not for petty faults.
Boddice begins the book with a significant fact: he is a chronic pain sufferer. How one’s own feelings impact one’s insights is a question that remains to be answered, but Boddice’s admission is already a step towards a serious debate on the subject. Indeed, the first chapter of the book firmly asserts the utter individuality and intransmissibility of pain. In this, he follows Scarry’s influential work. Despite this trenchant statement, Boddice does admit social and cultural factors, not only in pain manifestations but in the very sensation of pain. If the book is lacking in any sense, it is in the dearth of anthropological insights that might well have supported his thesis.