The empire of trauma: an inquiry into the condition of victimhood

The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood makes a signal contribution to the genre of “the history of the present.” It uses the apparently unremarkable fact that victims of disasters as diverse as genocide, earthquakes, and industrial accidents are all brought together within the same framework of understanding centered on the diagnostic category of trauma. It asks, What does it mean that we take the concept of trauma as a given in these circumstances? The first part of the book provides a systematic examination of the archives of psychology and psychiatry to delineate the double genealogy of the diagnostic category of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is followed by an…