The empire of trauma : an inquiry into the condition of victimhood / Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman ; translated by Rachel Gomme.

Originally published in French as: L'empire du traumatisme.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

A dual genealogy. The significance of a controversy. The birth of trauma. Labor laws -- The long hunt. Cowardice or death. The brutalization of therapy. After the war. A French history -- The intimate confession. War psychoanalysis. A profitable sickness. Victims of the self. The issue of survival -- An end to suspicion. Women and children first. The consecration of the event. The last witnesses. The humanity of criminals -- Psychiatric victimology. Victims' rights. The resistance of psychiatry. An ambiguous origin. A relative autonomy -- Toulouse. The summons to trauma. Emergency care in question. Inequalities and exclusions. Consolation and compensation -- Humanitarian psychiatry. One origin, two accounts. In the beginning was humanitarianism. On the margins of war. The frontiers of humanity -- Palestine. The need to testify. The chronicles of suffering. Equivalence of victims. Histories without a history -- The psychotraumatology of exile. The immigrant, between native and foreigner. The clinical practice of asylum. A change of paradigm. The evidence of the body -- Asylum. The illegitimate refugee. Recognizing the sign. The truth of writing. The meaning of words. Conclusion : the moral economy of trauma.

Translated from the French.