Emily Mayhew‘s Wounded was one of the catalysts for my present research project on medical care and casualty evacuation in war zones.  The original idea was to complete four case studies – the Western Front in the First World War, the deserts of North Africa in the Second, Vietnam and Afghanistan – but since then it has expanded to include a detailed analysis of attacks on hospitals and healthcare in Syria and elsewhere.  But running throughout these investigations is an interest in what Emily called ‘precarious journeys‘ – and a determination to break away from the usual academic voice (see here) –  so an announcement of her new book is extremely welcome.

It’s due from Profile in May:

What happens when you reach the threshold of life and death – and come back? As long as humans have lived together on the planet, there have been wars, and injured soldiers and civilians. But today, as we engage in wars across the globe with increasingly sophisticated technology, we are able to bring people back from ever closer encounters with death. But how do we do it, and what happens next? Here, historian Emily Mayhew explores the modern reality of medicine and injury in wartime, from the trenches of World War One to the dusty plains of Afghanistan and the rehabilitation wards of Headley Court in Surrey. Mixing vivid and compelling stories of unexpected survival and giving astonishing insights into the frontline of medicine, A Heavy Reckoning is a book about how far we have come in saving, healing and restoring the human body. But what are the costs involved in this hardest of journeys back from the brink? 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 both physically and mentally by casualties all over the world in the twenty-first century.

The book is published in conjunction with the Wellcome Collection, and I should note that Emily has also co-curated the current exhibition Wounded: Conflict, Casualties and Care at London’s Science Museum (more information here and here).  I spent a fascinated couple of hours there when I was in London last month – it is well worth a visit, though the parallels it draws between the Western Front and Afghanistan were too abbreviated for me.